New blog feature time! What I like most about this new feature is that it highlights what I like most about running our little online shop – meeting and interacting with amazingly creative people, and I’m not just talking about our designers. We have some pretty awesome customers too. I’m not surprised that a large number of our customers are creatively inclined, since we do tend to gravitate toward arty, conceptual designers.

I started thinking about contacting a few of our customers, who’d shared personal links and had intriguing careers and hobbies. A couple of them are personal friends (talk about being amazingly supportive).

Kimberly first caught my attention when we were filling her order and I noticed she’d included a link to her blog (yes, she has two!). I clicked over and was immediately hooked as some of her posts hinted at a really interesting day job. If you haven’t seen her clean, architectural bags yet, you’ve probably been living under a rock!

So without further delay, meet the super talented, super cool Kimberly.

1. What’re you wearing? 
Photo 1&2 : Margaret Howell linen top / vintage work pants / Building Block tassel / SSWTR pyramid bag

(See a couple more outfit photos on our FB page.)

2. Draw a picture of yourself in your favourite piece of clothing/outfit!

3. Your career is in a creative field and you make things in your free time as well. Tell us more! What’s your preferred way of expressing yourself artistically? (Share pictures of your creations if you’d like)

At the moment, I split my time between a day job designing cars at Honda’s Advanced Studio and moonlighting with Building Block.  It’s an interesting balance, as both jobs are technical and aesthetically driven, though on different levels. Both mediums walk the line between beauty and usability. 

I started Building Block after feeling increasingly detached in a corporate environment and was craving an outlet for personal expression. I’ve always tinkered around with different mediums..from bags, to ceramics, to trying to construct the world’s best sandwich! But this time around I was looking to build a concept from scratch—starting Building Block was much more of an emotional and idealogical craving rather than a routine hobby. The bags acknowledge my ideas about minimalism, luxury, honesty and humor through the use of proportion, material choices, scale, and utility.  Ultimately, whether it’s cars or bags, I’m optimistic that anything and everything can be a vehicle (no pun intended!!) for expression as long as you’re honest with yourself.

4. What do you find yourself thinking about obsessively that’s a major influence on your creative process?

At one point I was learning loose landscape drawing, and I had this really great teacher who taught me to break everything down to it’s most basic form, then design and exaggerate shapes from it.  The lesson has stayed with me for years now, and I’m always reminded of it when approaching my work.  It’s an interesting challenge using deconstruction as a design tool–removing the unnecessary and playing up the remaining elements.  At the core, it’s about how to filter through all the noise, and boil a design down to an honest statement.

5. Required reading?

6.  Recently found treasures?

• a spider web cleaning tool by an artist from Kyushu, Japan
• hand made bowl from a recent trip to Mashiko, Japan
• Japanese folk art papier mache cat
• indigo dyed embroidering thread

Jesse Bonny’s label, Dun, has been a Pour Porter Shop designer practically since we launched just a little over a year ago. What makes Bonny’s label so unique is not just the fact that she grows many of her supplies, but yucca cordage, which figures largely into many of her pieces, she creates from scratch. This is a time consuming process and a handicraft you don’t see utilized much anymore. Bonny also repurposes old fabric, leather, and other items to make her pieces so each item she produces is one-of-a-kind, not to mention limited edition! Make sure to see the latest accessories she created for us at the Shop and visit her beautiful little shop Dun Market to see more of her work.

We’re very pleased to announce that Jesse’s interview is the second installment of our 2011 Designer Interviews Series. Enjoy!

1. What was the first thing you ever made with your hands?
Hmm, mudpies? I remember as a kid my sister and I would gather up things (milkweed, pokeweed berries, honeysuckle berries, cattails, weeds of all sorts) in our nature-y, one acre backyard and mix them together to make a “witch’s brew”. I was always fascinated by magic (incantations and spells, not card tricks) and ghosts, and all things otherwordly.

2. You’ve suddenly found yourself in the middle of an eastern deciduous forest. Make an accessory or clothing item from things you’ve found from this forest, describe and sketch it.
One of my very favorite things: gathering! Ok, so I decided to make a little fringe “top” (we are very easy going here in the forest) out of basswood bark cordage with moss epaulets. Worn with cargo hiking pants. (mannequin image from here)

3. What is your signature accessory or piece of clothing that you’re never without?
At the moment, elastic waist pants. {Jesse was expecting her second daughter when she completed the interview!}

4. What gets you out of bed in the mornings?
A combination of my 3 year old {and now newborn} and hunger! It’s an immediate call to duty more than inspiration of any kind. I usually like the fact that it’s more about doing than thinking in the morning.

5. Recipe of your favourite meal/dessert/edible treat?
Mmmm, one of my favorite meals is really easy to make and very flexible:

6. Favourite plant
Wow, this is a hard one for me. I’ll narrow it down to a couple categories and to only things that grow in my yard.

7. Ideal shelter?
I have researched this subject A LOT, as I am planning to build a house for myself and my family in the next 5 years or so. Thus far the plan is for an adobe/straw bale hybrid house. Adobe on the east and south sides for thermal mass (heat collection from the sun) and straw bale on the west and north for insulation. A greenhouse for sun collection and an extended growing season. Corrugated metal shed roof for rain collection with a large cistern. Probably a tile floor (more thermal mass!), maybe an earthen floor but those seem like a ton of extra work. Really simple, small floor plan with a loft for the kids. Fireplace, nice bathtub, and lots of outdoor room.

8. Favourite book
I love to read!
Fiction: Last Things by David Searcy Non-fiction: Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price, Mother Nature* by Sarah Hrdy, The Descent of Woman by Elaine Morgan, The Great Cosmic Mother by Monica Sjoo and A Pattern Language* by Alexander, Ishikawa, and Silverstein

9. Favourite photo you’ve taken
I have a couple that I really love. The black and white one was taken on our honeymoon in Yellowstone, the color one was taken at a dog park in Santa Fe with a crazy ice storm approaching (another of my favorites is on the splash page of my website, it was taken on a ziggurat in Crestone, CO).

So you may recall that at the beginning of the year I said I wanted to mix it up a little and add some relatively regular features. (Well, as regular as I can manage!) Anyway, I liked the idea of interviewing some of our designers but trying really hard to avoid the traditional questions that seem to characterize most interviews online and otherwise these days.

I wanted to give them something fun and less tedious to tackle, while giving you guys a chance to get a playful and alternate glimpse into their creative worlds. So with out further ado, our first interviewees are Azumi and David of the UK based label A’N'D (click the link to see their stuff on the Shop).
I hope you all enjoy this new series!

1. What was the first thing you ever made with your hands?
David: First thing I remember drawing was Pegasus, the flying horse, in
pencil.
Azumi: I was making flower head pieces, weaving them.

2. Show us your favourite photo of your design studio.
Our mutant, stockman dress dummy lamp.

3. You’ve found yourself at the bottom of a deep lake. Make an accessory or item of clothing from the things you would find there and describe and sketch it.
As shopping trolleys are creatures that are found inhabiting many lakes, rivers and canals (our studio is next to the Regents canal), we imagine a trolley ‘baby’ being worn as a chic head piece.

4. What book do you think should be required reading for everyone?
David: ‘A Rebours’ (by JK Huysmans) – this was Oscar Wilde’s inspiration for
‘a picture of Dorian Gray’
Azumi: Grapefruit by Yoko Ono – everyday surprises!!

5. Your favourite painting in the whole world!
David & Azumi: Betty by Gerhard Richter – a rear view female portrait

6. If you suddenly were told you had to wear a uniform for the rest of your life what would it be?
We love vintage, blue cotton/canvas workwear.

7. Favourite recipe?
David: Sashimi with soya sauce and wasabi.
Azumi: Avocado, cherry tomato, roquette, chalot onions, sweet corn with olive oil and soya sauce on cous cous.

8. Your ideal shelter?
David & Azumi: 1930′s industrial building.