Katerina Shukshina

Childhood in the countryside is the happiest time. What could be better than cycling through forests and fields, swimming in the river on a hot day, building huts out of branches, walking barefoot on the green grass, picking acacia pods and making whistles out of them, picking a fluffy dandelion and making a wish?
Childhood in the countryside is also about love and respect for work. From an early age, my sisters and I helped our parents with household chores. We went to the forest to pick mushrooms and berries, made winter preparations from them, took part in haymaking, helped take care of the garden, and cooked food from home-made products. It was a life filled with bright colours, tastes, and impressions. And that’s what I carry forward in my work.

I always dreamed of going to art school, but at that moment I didn’t have the opportunity. That’s why I painted, moulded from plasticine, or made something on my own, at home. I graduated from university with a degree in History Teaching and worked at the school for several years doubling as organiser, speaker, artist, screenwriter, researcher, and so on. That probably developed my creative side well.

My first piece was a skirt, on which I sewed soft stalks of maned barley. This was dangerous but very beautiful as the weed was growing so romantically, blown by the wind in the clearing opposite my house that I wanted to try to integrate it into my wardrobe. I have repeatedly used this material. I also made a handbag and high fluffy boots out of spikelets.

Sometimes just a glance or a touch of a natural material is enough. It’s like a game of association: the soft texture of an amaranth evokes the image of a fur coat, a tulip bud resembles the shape of a heart, and the appearance of a zucchini resembles the shape of a ballet shoe or slipper. I might also start by choosing a product – say a bag – and then look for suitable material in the forest or my garden — choosing plants take a long time. Most of the time I create my pieces intuitively, laying things out in front of me, and trusting my unconscious as my hands begin to work on future art objects.

I don’t have a studio. In the summer, I work outside in my garden. I like to spread a blanket on a green lawn, lay out plant materials and necessary tools in front of me, and immerse myself in the creative process. The singing of birds, the chirping of grasshoppers, and my cats lying next to me set me up for a good mood. I work from home during the cold season. I have a utility room where I can store plant materials and some of my products.

I don’t like to stretch the creative process. Time is very valuable to me. There are so many seasonal plants in the summer — you’d want to have time to work with each one. Besides, plants are short-lived, and I need to try to capture them as fresh as possible.

Recently, the most painstaking one was a white currant bag, which I made in collaboration with Askent — a brand producing bags. The process of creating a bag reminded me of collecting puzzles, when you need to carefully select. Each currant twig is unique in its own way. Before fixing the twig to the base, I had to choose the most suitable one, after trying on different options. So, it was also one of the most memorable ones.

It’s hard to say which material is difficult or easier. Each has its own unpredictability, and you need to adjust — I like that ingenuity. Materials I can turn to endlessly are cabbage of all varieties and types, garlic arrows, peas, dandelions, and wildflowers.

Life in the village is based on the principles of environmental friendliness and waste-free production. There is a use for every blade of grass, every twig. I can make a bag out of currants and later make jam. The cabbage leaves that I used for the jacket will be fed to the chickens. Marigold flowers from the flower top are soon sent to dry for future tea.
In my personal style, I become a hostage to one item which I can wear for several years. Our family cares for things and passes it from generation to generation. Right now I'm wearing my mom’s clothes, which she once wore when she was young.

I try to find a use for all my products. Zucchini shoes soon become fritters, a tangerine boot turns into a tangerine pie, and I dry the flowers and use them for the herbarium. I treat some dry products with epoxy resin, and they become part of an ornament or a piece of clothing.

I don’t follow trends, although they periodically get into my information field as I observe global fashion. I rely primarily on my own vision and feeling of what the product should look like. Despite all my denial, trends may still have an unconscious effect on me! Like me creating bows from peas, cabbage and dandelions just coincided with the girlhood trend.

Collaboration with brands, artists, designers. Personal exhibitions, working on creating durable materials like accessories and jewellery. And of course, to continue pleasing my inner child by engaging in creativity for the soul and pleasure.

Nature is an inexhaustible source of inspiration that can be endlessly explored. I am also inspired by artists who work with nature, like florists, set designers, designers, farmers and gardeners. Or a visit to an exhibition, museum or art gallery, an Instagram post by a florist from London, words of support from my viewer, a song I accidentally heard, an art installation.

I think what I do is fun, romantic, and sometimes ambiguous. It allows you to look at familiar things with different eyes. Everyone also finds their associations, memories, and references to something familiar in my creations. But it would be much more interesting to wear such clothes in real life. So far, I haven’t had that opportunity – or only for a certain number of pieces – but I hope that will change very soon.

There are pea shoes, a bag made of peonies, a top made of garlic arrows, a jacket made of cabbage leaves, ballet flats made of dandelions, a fur coat made of amaranth. That coat is still preserved and on a hanger in a separate room! There is also a bag of wheat ears. From April to August, I had slippers from celosia. However, they soon began to lose their appearance, and I used the dried flowers as seeds for my garden.

A jewellery brand wanted me to work with their jewellery in my style. I was involved in the visual aspect of it, rather than production, which I’d also like to work on in the future.