As a stationery brand, we are always curious how and what people use our stationery goods for. With this blog series, focusing on the hands at "work" and beyond, we ask five questions about the usage and meaning of the stationery tools to our friends in Los Angeles.
For our 40th Working Hands, we had a delightful visit with Steven Gontarski. Steven is a multi faceted creator. He is a scent specialist and works at Lucky Scent as a Senior Manager of Brand and PR. He is a musician and composes all his music for his YouTube channel which logs his daily curiosities, perfumes, travels and more.
Steven welcomed us on a nice Saturday morning at his beautifully decorated house in East LA neighborhood.
Q1 a: We love seeing a minimal bedside table with a Hightide marble tray! How do you use the Marble Tray / M?
I put glasses of water on the marble tray. One for myself and one for my pug Sookie. She likes to drink from the glass closest to the bed and her drinking style is pretty splashy so the tray does a great job at keeping the water from getting on to the wooden table.
Marble Desk Tray / M in green for Sookie's water glass.
Q1 b:
What’s in a nähe Hard Shell Case / S ?
I use the hard shell case to store the microphones for my phone and all the little things that go with them like clips and wind fuzzies. I have a weekly vlog on YouTube and usually record segments for it throughout the week so I need a centralized place for all the bits and pieces I need for recording.
Q1 c: How are you liking your Kakimori fountain pen system? What are you going to use a Kakimori A5 notebook for?
I love the pen! I will use it mostly for holiday card writing. Writing with a pen like the Kakimori influences my handwriting, making it prettier which is exactly what I want for holiday cards. I will use the A5 notebook to keep notes for the perfume I'm going to launch in the new year!
Steve – the name for Steven's first ever perfume he has been developing.
Q2. In our technology driven world, what does it mean to write things by your hand to you?
Q3. Pencils or Mechanical Pencils?
I like and use them equally. Mechanical pencils are maybe slightly more convenient since I tend to lose pencil sharpeners.
Q4. What’s in your pen case?
Currently a mechanical pencil, two pens, an eraser and a dongle.
Q5. What is your most favorite stationery?
I bought an agenda from the British brand Smythson in 2003 when I was living in London. Since then I buy them annually. I write down appointments and keep notes of trips and little things like seeing a movie or going to a concert. In the first week of the year I take the new agenda out of the blue box and place the old one in it. The box gets stacked with the other Smythson boxes on my bookshelf. I have over 20 of them now and If I ever need to know what I was up to in a particular year, it's very easy to find out. I've been doing this for so long now that I would consider the Smythson agenda to be a big part of my everyday life and my favorite piece of stationery.
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Steven Gontarski is a multi interdisciplinary creator. By day, he works at a well-regarded perfume boutique, Lucky Scent as a Senior Manager of Brand and PR. By night, he creates music and unique contents for his YouTube channel which gets released every weekend. In his YouTube channel, you can learn about a perfume he wears that day with extensive stories or beautiful things he is into that week.
The way he weaves his words to express himself and describe perfumes is so earnest and thoughtful! Have a look, the links are below.
Instagram
YouTube
And last but not least, Steven recently released an album titled Morning Moon which is available for streaming and on vinyl in December.
Streaming available on Apple Music, Spotify
