TALENT SPOT
‘I started creating because I wanted to make some bugs and plants to go on my walls,’ says mixed media artist Kate Kato of Kasasagi Designs, who saw her hobby for sculpting intricate flora and fauna from paper, blossom into a new career. Aiming to capture those little things in life as if through the curious eyes of a child seeing them for the first time, Kate begins every piece with a walk in the countryside, her children in tow. ‘They’ll spot things that are completely different to what I’m looking for,’ she says. ‘It’s nice to see things differently; they really do make you look at everything.’ As well as using her magpie eye on botanical specimens, Kate lets no book, magazine or newspaper escape her attention, as she is always on the look out for interesting materials to sculpt with. Luckily, being based in the rural Welsh borders, just 15 minutes from the so-called ‘town of books’ Hay-on-wye, she is perfectly placed to source inspiration for both. After an initial phase of documenting, photographing, collecting and drawing, Kate begins to bring her creations to life, which can take anywhere from 30 minutes to three hours. She first selects and prepares her papers, painting them in watercolours if needed. Book lovers needn’t be alarmed – when it comes to materials she leaves the rare and valuable on the shelf, opting instead for printed casualties too old and battered to tell their stories. She also hand embroiders and embellishes at this stage.
Using a template she then cuts out the separate components from the papers and, using specialist tools, assembles the 3D forms, fixing them together with wire and glue, but in places also binding with thread. ‘I want the sculptures to look real and not real at the same time,’ says Kate. ‘I like to provoke curiosity in the viewer by leaving sections of the original object visible.’ Kate takes commissions, or you can buy ready-made pieces online. (kasasagidesign.com)
ROLE
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