What’s in a name? The Most Curious Kat.

What’s the saying “One person’s junk is another’s treasure”?! I come from a family of hoarders which I’m sure is ingrained in me; can hoarding be genetic?! It is said that my Grandpa used to come back from the tip with more things than he took there!

I’m like a magpie, I love sparkly things. Without fail if I’m feeling a little blue I’ll throw on something with a little bit of sparkle and it’ll perk me up! For as long as I can remember I’ve ripped pages from magazines to make collages, rescued gems from broken jewelry, salvaged treasures from skips and beside the road.

I recall at an early age picking up curly wood shavings from my Dad’s garage floor, and arranging them with offcuts of wood into a face as a present for my Mum. There is something about the smell of freshly sawn wood, it’s so comforting and homely to me. My Dad taught me all I know about DIY, we grew up helping with jobs around the house, it was always so exciting to be allowed to hammer in the nails and use the drill! There was a lot to do - my parents took on the renovation of a 1920’s house which had been converted into 3 flats. Over the years they gradually returned it to its former glory as a family home. I guess it’s no surprise that as I grew up I was drawn to the CDT (Craft Design & Technology) lab at school with it’s buzzsaws and pillar drills, and then into the world of Film & TV drawing up sets & overseeing their build in the workshops with that familiar woodworking smell. 

When I look back over my creations, from simple handmade cards, illustrations and gifts that I made as a teenager for my friends (I am always surprised when someone tells me they still have my handmade cards from yesteryear!), to my degree show project at University and more recently my fairy doors, I realise that I am drawn to that eclectic assemblage of odds and ends to create something magical; trinkets reinvented and given new life and often these end up as rather curious looking things!

The name The Most Curious Kat morphed over time from many ideas and loves; Alice in Wonderland: “Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English);” Charles Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop, and more simply the word “curios”;

curio

[ kyoor-ee-oh ]

noun, plural cu·ri·os.

any unusual article, object of art, etc., valued as a curiosity.

I initially wanted to be “The Most Curios Kat”, but decided that people might just think that I had spelt curious wrong, let alone the word cat! So there you have it - the origins of The Most Curious Kat!