As many of our Canyon stories start, our first connection with Rafael came from a mutual respect for each other's brand, work, and passion. A simple DM lead to long conversations about parallels in production between quality chocolate and coffee such as single origin sourcing and terrior.
As many of our Canyon stories start, our first connection with Rafael came from a mutual respect for each other's brand, work, and passion. A simple DM lead to long conversations about parallels in production between quality chocolate and coffee such as single origin sourcing and terrior.
I’m very inconsistent, I adjust to the context , the weather, the situation, the city, the emotional state I am.
Lately I can say I’m quite into going to Union Square Market in the mornings, Mondays and Wednesdays, this early interaction with people, the kindness around it, the smell and color of vegetables, it just feels right to me.
I mainly exercise after the market and voila!
Then since I am very awake when I wake up, I don’t take any stimulant until 12 pm, which is when I take a coffee, I like it warm no matter if it’s winter or summer, and it feels like a moment where I take a second breath to keep on going.
My path into design is rather strange to explain, at least to me.
I was indeed always creative, and always found my way into what I believed to be design. Design being more about culture, about emotion, and being able to speak to people from a visual point of view.
In the studio we are always aiming to create or produce something meant to be beautiful, relevant, interesting, and understandable. It’s an ongoing exercise of balance between function, emotion, and aesthetics.
I mainly live in NY. There is such balance to my life.
In México, I feel extremely free and so comfortable. It’s so much fun! The city is delicious and complex in every angle which makes it very fun.
In New York, I feel great too. I have very close friends here, and I am constantly challenged, by art, by people, by the projects we get to work on… I feel amazed constantly by people and what is being created here. Things happen in a second and, you just have to roll with it.
I got into chocolate because I love chocolate. It was a world I had to explore. I started creating Casa Bosques one year after I started my design agency, Savvy Studio, in 2010, It has been such an interesting and pleasurable journey. As I carry on, I am more open about expressing myself through it, flavors, photography, shapes, words…
The intentions have always been about being personal, welcoming, honest, cozy, and of course, with romance over it all. Romance is everything.
Inspiration is everywhere, people, books, art, food, travel, words, music…
I don't seek it particularly, I just go around every day open to see and appreciate things and eventually that will inform my practice.
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.
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.