Who's in the Pockets. Tori Tokabari.

Hi, I’m Tori and I live in Crimea, Ukraine. I’m bringing up my 5 year-old daughter Dasha (who occasionally helps me in making art) and foster our very capricious cat Tiberius (TB for friends).

Being 7 years old, I started to study various techniques in the kids’ craft studio and since that time my hands have no rest. At the moment, my priority technique is pyrography. Overcoming my occasional onsets of laziness, I also make bags and some important little things, knit beaded cords, assemble small jewelry pieces from odds, do the stitching and paint a little. This constant change of activities helps me to get out of the creative ruts.

Besides, I’m very much into photography, mountain biking, geo-caching, post-crossing, and some other offensively called matters. Apart of sniffing up the fumes of burning wood, I work part-time at the craft studio with children of different age, from toddlers to teenagers.

I love to work with organic and natural materials like wood, felt, linen and cotton fabrics, glass beads, fossils and vintage odds. After spending many years in the high north, I’m very much into the culture of Saami people. Another inspiration space is kids’ art, their drawings, doodles, and anything made by hand. I’m going ape over their unusual vision and expression of ordinary things. Talking about the great names, I’m very influenced by Kafka and Gaudi. Among the alive and glorious, I really love the Daft Punk.

My art process is bitty. Usually, I just have some elements, which caught my eye. Step by step, more and more details are layered over the initial object to complete the final image. Sometimes, it all starts with a doodle in my journal, and sometimes I just want to see what would happen if I do it “this way” – and rest is just building around the experiment.

To me, handmade is something very much in woman’s nature. It lets a woman to express her creative power, her personality, have joy in palpable benefits of her work. But sometimes, you just can make and wear a pair of earrings that you won't find in any store!