Kassandra Thatcher is an LA-based artist specializing in ceramic lighting and sculpture. We recently paid a visit to her Arlington Heights studio to see her in action, and learn more about her story, life and work.
Kassandra Thatcher is an LA-based artist specializing in ceramic lighting and sculpture. We recently paid a visit to her Arlington Heights studio to see her in action, and learn more about her story, life and work.
I grew up in NYC, I went to college in the Hudson Valley (at Bard). By the time I was 25 it felt like I hardly left the City. I’d traveled in my life for a few weeks at a time, but I’d never really been outside of New York.
When the pandemic hit, I’d already been wanting to leave NY for some time, but my whole family is from there. I’m an only child, my mom is a single mom; there was nothing that was going to push me to leave unless I was going somewhere, with someone.
When I met Alex, my partner, he wanted to move back to LA right after the pandemic hit. It was the right place, right time. I had to move out of my apartment during COVID anyway, so at the end of 2020 we drove out here.in that kind of place — which feels like a surreal thing, when you’re surrounded by people who came here for and are achieving their dreams.
I grew up all over downtown, but I lived In Flatiron the longest stretch of time. I moved there when I was 9. That’s when we moved into the space where my parents had had their office. People loved coming over to my house because we had a urinal and stalls in one of the bathrooms because… it had been an office.
I think everyone should leave the place where they were raised! I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders growing up… due to complicated family stuff. When I was younger I took everything really seriously — which I also think is sort of inevitable when you grow up in the City. You’re taking the train by yourself when you’re 12, 13 years old, learning how to navigate those experiences… I think that gives you a false sense of being an adult and that you’re on your own.
And then I got to 25, 26, when I moved here… and realized there are so many things that make me not an adult. I was going through the same changes people go through at 18 when they leave home. Because so many people do leave and go somewhere far from home at that age. I still am amazed at how much you can be affected by leaving the place where you grew up.
I think everyone should leave the place where they were raised! I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders growing up… due to complicated family stuff. When I was younger I took everything really seriously — which I also think is sort of inevitable when you grow up in the City. You’re taking the train by yourself when you’re 12, 13 years old, learning how to navigate those experiences… I think that gives you a false sense of being an adult and that you’re on your own.
And then I got to 25, 26, when I moved here… and realized there are so many things that make me not an adult. I was going through the same changes people go through at 18 when they leave home. Because so many people do leave and go somewhere far from home at that age. I still am amazed at how much you can be affected by leaving the place where you grew up.
I grew up all over downtown, but I lived In Flatiron the longest stretch of time. I moved there when I was 9. That’s when we moved into the space where my parents had had their office. People loved coming over to my house because we had a urinal and stalls in one of the bathrooms because… it had been an office.
For Mariah Nielson, the familiar is never static. Mornings begin inside the hand-built Inverness, CA home her father, sculptor JB Blunk, shaped from salvaged redwood in the 1950s. It’s where Mariah now lives, and is raising her own son amid the textures, tools, and stories of her childhood—alongside traded works from friends, artist-made artifacts, and her own growing contributions.
For painter Jereme Brian Mendez, mornings move at their own pace: ice water, meditation, and a walk through the quiet streets of the Berkeley Hills, where deer roam past and the fog hangs low. His studio hours don’t begin until the light shifts in the afternoon, but those early rituals—quiet, steady, tactile—form the architecture of his day.
Before she ever touched clay, Zoe Dering worked as a pastry chef: learning to follow her hands, sense heat, and trust intuition. After nearly a decade in professional kitchens, she began taking pottery classes as a way to engage with the world differently...and something clicked. What started as a creative experiment soon became its own kind of calling, and today—from her studio in Sebastopol, CA—Zoe creates ceramic work that blends form and feeling, rooted in curiosity, balance, and personal expression.