Dear everyone,
Hi, it’s Kika & Tala. We are writing to you with some big of news.
After two years of building a studio and working on projects together, we’re going our separate ways.
Two Toes was born out of friendship. On the floor of our college dorm room in 2017, we discovered an undeniable, magnetic force that led us to create a lot of things together, the biggest being this creative studio. It’s been an unbelievable few years – we’ve worked on projects that we are extremely proud of, traveled across the world together, and met the most incredible community of other creative humans.
But being business partners was always a secondary role to being best friends. And as friends, we’ve both grown and changed in a lot of ways. It’s an incredibly beautiful and challenging thing to start a business with a best friend, and to intertwine two lives across the country as we both navigate our twenties and decide who we want to be.
These past few months have held a lot of discussions about Two Toes and what direction we want to take during this next chapter. And through these conversations, we have come to the conclusion that right now, we want to be focusing on different things. And so we are taking this chance to explore our own pathways and grow independently. And remembering how to be just friends again.
You likely have some questions, so let us answer them.
What about client work / projects?
We are both still independent artists and freelancers, and though we won’t be working together, we’d still love to work with you if it makes sense. Reach out to Kika if you are looking for design & illustration work, and reach out to Tala for animation & video projects.
What about Idea Camp?
It’s not going anywhere! Idea Camp has been the most impactful thing we’ve done during our time running Two Toes (and possibly in our entire lives). We hope to continue cultivating this creative space forever. We made the hard decision to cancel our spring retreat in order to take some time to navigate these changes, but will still be running our August Idea Camp in the Mountains and are both very excited. There are still spots available - we’d love to see you there.
What about the New York studio?
Tala will continue to run the space and host events for the Brooklyn creative community.
Do you still believe in collaboration?
Obviously. Yes, definitely. And also we are learning a lot about the importance of taking time to explore your creativity independently as well. A lot of the reasoning behind this decision is due to the fact that we want to keep collaborating – in many different forms for our whole lives we hope. And we are realizing that in order to do that we have to accept that it will look different at different times in our lives.
What have been your favorite projects together?
Over our past 10 years of friendship we’ve made a lot of things we’ve loved together. And even out of all the pieces that have won awards and been widely circulated, some of our very favorite projects are ones we’ve never shown the world. So we thought we’d compile a list of some favorite things we made (some that we’ve never shared), to commemorate the start of a new chapter.
The first animated video we ever made
This deck of absurd cards and words that became our religion
The improv play we put on (no link because it was improvised)
This absolute BANGER song we made in our earliest days
The novel we wrote for our friend Thomas when he was sick
The album we made in the park across from our Vancouver apartment
This unfinished video about cheese and purpose
The alphabet kid’s book we wrote and didn’t illustrate
These two songs we recorded very professionally with Andrew McKean and did nothing with
The unstarted musical we’re convinced is what all of this is building to
& probably a lot of other things we’re forgetting
Please enjoy these scraps of collaboration as a celebration of the past 10 years of friendship, and honoring our own journeys as we move on to the next thing. We love you all and couldn’t have made any of it without you.
Yours,
Kika & Tala
