once upon a time..

Once upon a time I had no kids. I worked at a winery as a designer and got paid to take short holidays to photograph vineyards in another state. It was nice, kinda fun really. I got to fly in a vintage plane. I got to drink ridiculously expensive wines.. and I mean those ones that you generally only read or hear about and I met a lot of wine buffs (wankers). Being absorbed in my work and working within the wine industry never made me into a connoisseur of fine wine, in fact far from it.

Photography.. hmm.. I exhibited my work in a number of venues, was featured in a heap of print media, had my photo greeting cards in a number of little shops and was heading towards that.. "when i grow up, i wanna be..." moment. Then I stumbled into the wine industry. I was offered a job when I asked for a donation of wine for an exhibition opening... I liked it at first as I got to use both my photography and design skills but eventually I got suffocated. Design no longer had that wow factor, as each time I designed something which I thought was pretty damn sweet, it got picked apart by each member of our little team.. even the accountant seemed to know more about which font should have been used or what thickness a line should have been.

Eight years on, I resigned from my job rather than taking maternity leave when I was pregnant with my second child.. who is now almost two. I needed a change, I wanted to focus on my kids and I wanted to get re-inspired about design again.

Sadly the full time mum thing didn't work that well for me.. I needed to do something that was still me, I needed to be creative in some way and kasiabear started. It started off with just screen printed tees of my designs then moved into sewing. It pulled me out of a rutt, it cheered me up, it got me inspired. I started taking photos again and recently pulled out some of my old photos.. It got me thinking.. then the holiday season creeped up and I had even more time to think...

After all this thinking, I have decided to take kasiabear in a new direction and include my photography and some print design in the mix. The transition will happen slowly, as my kids are still my number one focus and this is my little girls last year before she starts school.

I'm very excited about this new direction and feel a whole new enthusiasm deep down. As far as kasiabear clothing goes.. my little etsy shop will stay right where it is. I will focus mainly on printed tees and will upload OOAK clothing here and there. I've started uploading some photos onto my little corner of red bubble too.. you can purchase the images in various forms directly from there.. or just pop in every-now-and then to have a look at my past adventures and some that haven't happened yet.. There is a little {photography} tab along the top of my blog which takes you straight to red bubble.

Thank you all for your amazing support during the beginnings of kasiabear.. its been a ride..
 xx
  kasia