Journal: Kassandra Thatcher
17/11/23
How does choosing your bag for the day and its contents tie into your daily ritual?
Choosing and packing my bag each morning is one of the few things that feels ritualistic about my day. I don’t easily keep rituals or habits so it becomes the time for me to check in about what I want for myself that day and what I’ll need to make it through to the end successfully.
What are the non-functional/meaningful things that you carry with you on a daily basis? (mementos, good luck charms, personal affects, etc.)
Truthfully I’m too adhd to consistently carry around anything non-functional. If anything I have an overabundance of functional items in tow at all times, which is why I am drawn to larger bags; I’m always fearing there’s something I’ll forget.
What expressive function does your bag have for you?
Choosing a bag sets the tone of how I'm perceived by the world around me. I think we can't help but make assumptions about people when we see what bag they choose to hold their personal possessions as they walk amongst us.
How does your bag (read: shape, features, size, material, etc.) inform the way you carry yourself, the activities you choose to do, the way you engage with your surroundings?
Carrying on from the last q.. I refused to use non-utility bags until three or so years ago. I felt then (and do still feel but with a positive bend) hyper-aware of who I’ll be perceived as based on the bag I carry. Culturally, carrying a purse is seen as more femme and I wasn’t comfortable with automatic labeling, and very specifically wasn’t comfortable being seen as feminine. I’ve grown into myself a lot these last few years and I feel a big part of that growth, as silly as it may seem, came from my decision to start using a bag that felt more like a cute accessory. The playfulness that came with carrying that piece helped me find confidence in being me, caring less about the eyes on me. There’s something really powerful for me in wearing my dirty, baggy studio clothes whilst carrying a luxurious, leather bag with hardware details.
Choosing a bag can be an act of expansion or a pairing down to essentials. Which one of these do you gravitate toward (and why)? When thinking about this, do notions about security/agency/independence come to mind? If so, how?
I have little bits of my life in every bay in my closet and tend to hyper fixate on certain bags in certain moods of my life. When I am offered the expanse of space, l use it all up packing anything and everything. On the other hand, when I'm using a special bag I pair down to the essentials. Something about the material perhaps acts psychologically on me. With structured canvas I'm a mess, with silky leather I'm suddenly sophisticated in my choices.
What shapes, features, materials, textures, and/or functions are inspiring your creative process currently?
My curiosities in regard to shape have made a big shift in the last year from fluidity into hard edges, and I’ve been marinating in that space between. Where physical or elemental movements peak, where the edges of things meet. I’ve also only been working with clay for the last five years and have a hunger for materials like metal and fabric. Specifically almuninum. I don’t want to abandon my loyal material altogether so I’ve been thinking a lot about how to mix all these interests together.
How do you balance your art practice with personal creative interests? Or is there no such distinction?
There is absolutely no distinction. I wish there were, and I actually have been trying to pick up other interests because my ego gets all tangled up in my work and that does me absolutely no good. The closest I come is back to my roots, ferociously reading every chance I get.
Your work includes designs for lighting, such as sconces and lamps. How do you approach creating vessels with this specific feature? What quality of light do you most want to harness?
In space, the way things are illuminated — both objects that emanate the light and objects that are bathed in that light — holds a lot of influence on the tenor and tone of that space. I come from a family that never used overhead lights, so I have a sort of built-in sensitivity to how light can affect a mood or experience. And even though my choice to make my sculptures into lighting originally came out of a self-inflicted constraint when I felt the fear of the ‘blank page’, I think I’ve always been most interested in capturing a visceral reaction to an art object. And I think light does that.
What is on the horizon?
I accidentally turned into a production studio during the pandemic and am slowly attempting to transition out of that. So I’m working on a few projects/series that I hope to release at the beginning of next year.
Share a taste and a sound that are on your mind.
Taste: pistachio milk; Sound: the song "On the Beach" by Arcade Fire & Owen Pallett.
Choosing and packing my bag each morning is one of the few things that feels ritualistic about my day. I don’t easily keep rituals or habits so it becomes the time for me to check in about what I want for myself that day and what I’ll need to make it through to the end successfully.
What are the non-functional/meaningful things that you carry with you on a daily basis? (mementos, good luck charms, personal affects, etc.)
Truthfully I’m too adhd to consistently carry around anything non-functional. If anything I have an overabundance of functional items in tow at all times, which is why I am drawn to larger bags; I’m always fearing there’s something I’ll forget.
What expressive function does your bag have for you?
Choosing a bag sets the tone of how I'm perceived by the world around me. I think we can't help but make assumptions about people when we see what bag they choose to hold their personal possessions as they walk amongst us.
How does your bag (read: shape, features, size, material, etc.) inform the way you carry yourself, the activities you choose to do, the way you engage with your surroundings?
Carrying on from the last q.. I refused to use non-utility bags until three or so years ago. I felt then (and do still feel but with a positive bend) hyper-aware of who I’ll be perceived as based on the bag I carry. Culturally, carrying a purse is seen as more femme and I wasn’t comfortable with automatic labeling, and very specifically wasn’t comfortable being seen as feminine. I’ve grown into myself a lot these last few years and I feel a big part of that growth, as silly as it may seem, came from my decision to start using a bag that felt more like a cute accessory. The playfulness that came with carrying that piece helped me find confidence in being me, caring less about the eyes on me. There’s something really powerful for me in wearing my dirty, baggy studio clothes whilst carrying a luxurious, leather bag with hardware details.
Choosing a bag can be an act of expansion or a pairing down to essentials. Which one of these do you gravitate toward (and why)? When thinking about this, do notions about security/agency/independence come to mind? If so, how?
I have little bits of my life in every bay in my closet and tend to hyper fixate on certain bags in certain moods of my life. When I am offered the expanse of space, l use it all up packing anything and everything. On the other hand, when I'm using a special bag I pair down to the essentials. Something about the material perhaps acts psychologically on me. With structured canvas I'm a mess, with silky leather I'm suddenly sophisticated in my choices.
What shapes, features, materials, textures, and/or functions are inspiring your creative process currently?
My curiosities in regard to shape have made a big shift in the last year from fluidity into hard edges, and I’ve been marinating in that space between. Where physical or elemental movements peak, where the edges of things meet. I’ve also only been working with clay for the last five years and have a hunger for materials like metal and fabric. Specifically almuninum. I don’t want to abandon my loyal material altogether so I’ve been thinking a lot about how to mix all these interests together.
How do you balance your art practice with personal creative interests? Or is there no such distinction?
There is absolutely no distinction. I wish there were, and I actually have been trying to pick up other interests because my ego gets all tangled up in my work and that does me absolutely no good. The closest I come is back to my roots, ferociously reading every chance I get.
Your work includes designs for lighting, such as sconces and lamps. How do you approach creating vessels with this specific feature? What quality of light do you most want to harness?
In space, the way things are illuminated — both objects that emanate the light and objects that are bathed in that light — holds a lot of influence on the tenor and tone of that space. I come from a family that never used overhead lights, so I have a sort of built-in sensitivity to how light can affect a mood or experience. And even though my choice to make my sculptures into lighting originally came out of a self-inflicted constraint when I felt the fear of the ‘blank page’, I think I’ve always been most interested in capturing a visceral reaction to an art object. And I think light does that.
What is on the horizon?
I accidentally turned into a production studio during the pandemic and am slowly attempting to transition out of that. So I’m working on a few projects/series that I hope to release at the beginning of next year.
Share a taste and a sound that are on your mind.
Taste: pistachio milk; Sound: the song "On the Beach" by Arcade Fire & Owen Pallett.
Kassandra wears the Jane bag in Black and a Medium Box Tote in Natural
Photographed by Jane Dylan Cody