SOMETHING SACRED: A FAREWELL TO KARISSA RAY-HIGGINS (1994–2025)
A Dedication from the Team Behind The Live Echoes
There’s no blueprint for this kind of post. No checklist for losing someone who shaped something sacred with you—especially when you didn’t know you were building something sacred in the first place.
Karissa Ray-Higgins passed away on January 2nd, 2025.
I didn’t hear about it from a headline or a phone call. I found out through a message from someone close to her—a friend gently inquiring about the books. Wondering when they’d arrive. Wondering why the silence.
That silence hit like a punch to the chest.
Karissa wasn’t just an artist for The Live Echoes. She was a co-architect. She gave the story its look, its weight, its soul. And the truth is, I’ve been struggling—not just with how to process her absence, but with how to even talk about the work without her.
Back when we started, The Live Echoes was a long-shot. A remote collaboration held together by FaceTime, Zoom, and a shared sense that we had something worth chasing. Mo wrote from L.A., Karissa drew from Indianapolis, and I stitched it together in Bloomington. We even had help from Adan Guevara in Venezuela , with the cover art to tie it all together, and pull us into Karissa’s curated worldview, the live echoes-verse…
Karissa and I met once, briefly, when the project was still young and bursting with too many ideas. We tried everything. Pivoted. Crashed. Rebuilt. Taped what we could to the drawing board and did it all again. And through it all, Karissa stayed sharp, curious, funny, and remarkably grounded.
She had a way of making the weird feel intentional. Of giving the surreal a sense of home.
We’d already made it tradition to dedicate each volume of The Live Echoes to those we lost while making it: one beloved cat. Two dear friends. And now—absurdly, heartbreakingly—the hand that drew it all.
Obit.
Karissa Tierra Ray-Higgins was born on September 12, 1994, and raised on the Eastside of Indianapolis. She was the oldest of five siblings, a rock for her family, and a light to those around her. She brought that light into her community—through art, through service, through food, and through pure, empathetic connection.
She worked as a barista, a Trader Joe’s team member, a self-made artist. She loved animals, quirky food, and tiny joys. She made squid magnets. Painted strange faces. Laughed loudly. Made people feel seen. Her creative spirit wasn’t a career—it was the way she was in the world.
She was loved. And she is missed.
The Live Echoes Double Feature: Coming Soon
We will be re-releasing The Live Echoes as a special Double Feature—Books One and Two, collected in a single volume. This edition will include a new dedication to Karissa and a written tribute that reflects on her legacy and our friendship.
To those who have already placed orders: thank you for your patience. We know some of you have been waiting a long time. Please know that while we don’t intend the wait to stretch much longer, we also don’t want to rush it. This is too important.
We’re taking the time to make this right—to give Karissa’s memory the space it deserves, and to honor the work she poured herself into. It will be worth the wait.
Karissa was a stranger when we met. Facebook tossed one of her pieces into my feed like a flare from the void. I reached out. She responded. We started building a world together.
She mattered.
She made this.
And now her fingerprints live on every page.
Rest easy, Karissa.
Your Echoes Still Live. <3
We’ll carry it from here—with less light, but more purpose.
Pique Audio VisualSneak-Pique of the never before seen iss. 2.
