One Day : Mike Watt - Bag Maker
Location: Llansadwrn, Wales
Profession / passion: Bag Maker
Website: www.ruralkind.com
Instagram: @ruralkind
One Day is an ongoing project sparked by the Covid-19. In the days of isolation we would like to focus on what we do best; bringing people together.
We will continue to post One Day every Wednesday going forward. See our instagram stories to experience these peoples One Day in action.
A text, song or film that everyone should experience.
One Moonlit Night (Un Nos Ola Leuad) by Caradog Prichard. A beautifully poetic book, set in the early 1900’s about a boy growing up in a slate quarrying village in North Wales.
What is the story behind your profession/ passion?
I’ve always been a maker, just not professionally. As a child, through my teenage years and throughout my time studying architecture I’ve designed and crafted things by hand. Whilst being an architect fulfilled my designing urge, after 10 years or so of being sat at a desk, I felt the need to create physical objects, by hand, and that’s where bag making came in and Rural Kind began. It wasn’t really a conscious decision, I just started sketching bags one day, feeling the need for a simple, honest, heardwearing bag for our own use that we couldn’t easily find elsewhere. And it coincided with a conscious change in our own habits of moving away from mass manufacture and consumerism, buying less and buying things that would last.
So it began with a set of values, a handful of the strongest, most durable and predominantly British made materials we could find and a couple of old sewing machines, and it’s grown from there. I now spend my days in the former dining room of an old school we’re converting, just making. And that makes me pretty happy.
How do you want people to react to your work / passion?
Firstly, I’d just hope they found one of our products really useful. But beyond that I hope that they get a small amount of joy every time they use their bag or wallet.
Function or form?
Definitely form follows function. Being a trained (and still practising) architect, it’s ingrained in me to put functionality ahead of form in the design pecking order. I take the same approach when designing bags, starting with and defining a specific function before a bag takes any kind of shape.
Analog or digital?
Analog. It probably stems from an early age, but I’ve always sketched, drawn and modelled by hand. Making physical models during years of architecture school was part of my way of working, steering well clear of computers. Maybe it was even my speciality. The need to work with my hands is a big reason why I moved away from architecture - which had become almost entirely computer based - to bag making. Perhaps it could have been any kind of making, as long it was using my hands, but bag making was an idea that just came along first.
Describe a smell that brings back memories to you.
Rain on hot tarmac. It takes me back to summer days spent almost entirely outdoors, playing with friends on the small road outside our childhood home, on bikes, on go-carts, kicking around a football. Rain on hot grass works too.
Your best trait?
Thoroughness.
When was the last time you learned something new and what was it?
We’re (my wife and I) currently converting a small old school to a home. We’ve never owned anything, or even taken on a build project before. And we’re trying to do as much of the work ourselves - something we’ve always wanted to do and not just because we can’t afford to pay anyone to do it for us! These past few weekends, we’ve taken a big step forward as we start to repair and re-point the old stone walls; learning how to mix a hot-lime mortar, learning how to re-point stonework. There’s a lot to learn working with lime - it can be a bit fussy and demanding - but we have a lot of wall to practice on.
If you were forced to sit still for one month straight without pursuing your current profession, how would you spend your time? I would spend it whittling wood. I’ve dabbled with hand carving spoons and bowls for a few years, and I already know I can sit for hours, totally absorbed in it, time passing without knowing. I find it really therapeutic and I could spend the time exploring new forms and techniques. If I could have a wood lathe too I could probably do a year!
Lastly, how do wish to see this current situation have a positive impact on our lives?
We’ve seen a lot of community built and enhanced over the paths few months. Neighbours helping each other out, everyone checking up on each other, having a common goal of keeping safe and well. I’ve never experienced a time, when the first questions have been are you ok, are you keeping well, do you need anything? Although interactions have been a little more sparse, they’ve been more meaningful. If we could continue that going forward I think it would really help build a community spirit that has probably been slowly eroding for decades.