Quintessa

Quintessa (born August 4, 1988) is an artist and designer from the United States. She is a retro and indie fur in the furry community. Her character Quintessa, or Tessa or Stripes for short, is a cheshire cat that somewhat reflects her creator, Kat, in real life.

Quintessa, the Cheshire Cat
Quintessa, sometimes called Tessa or Stripes for short, is an artsy and counter-cultual cheshire cat. She is now a fish out of water again in small town suburan living after living in the huge city for a few years. She is a costume shop seamstress and in the local independent costume shop. She creates costumes for different plays, time periods, cultual genres, and the like. Her strong point is historical costume. Anything from the Victorian era or 20th Century are her favorites to work on. Although she spends all day toiling over a sewing machine or thinking up new costume ideas, she wouldn't have her life anyother way. Even during the costume rush called Halloween.

Having independent an coutner-cultural streak, Tessa is oftern faced with conformity by people she meets in her new home and from her past. Her goal is to be her own person with her own views on life rather then having ideas and thoughts force fed to her. Being this way Tessa strays away from the mainstream ideas and fads. She preferes to shop for herself at second-hand or thrift shops and get her grocceries at local farmers markets, when she can. She dispises large box chain stores for the fact that they take over a town and run small independent shops out of business. Tessa also considers herself a bit of a feminist and environmentalist as well.

Being artsic can lead to Tessa into some new Do-it-Yourself projects. Be it making "new" tea tins out of old cookie tins, or making garland out of Thank-You and Christmas cards there's always some new idea coming to mind. She has an idea to make her own curtians, pillows, and other fun things in the future.

Conventions
Quintessa has been to two conventions since officially joining the fandom in 2011.


 * AnthroCon: 2012 (Saturday only)
 * Furlaxation: 2012

Quintessa in Real Life
Quintessa, better known as Kat, was born in Ebensburg, PA on August 4, 1988. She is the oldest of three children and was thought to become a musician by her parents as a baby. But as Kat was growing up, she showed talents in the visual arts as an artist or designer and had talent in ballet and jazz in the performing arts. Kat decided that she wanted to go to art school at 10 years of age, but didn't know which area of art to look into. It wasn't until she watched a sci-fi movie and fell for the costumes that she wanted to focus on fashion design. It was at this age that Kat left the private Catholic school she attended since pre-school to another local and public school, Central Cambria, that supported the visual arts.

Once Kat transfered, she grew artistically and as an individual. She started showing her artwork at the local Art in Bloom art show every spring while working at the family restaurant, Penn Gables. Kat was also a member of the Central Cambria High School marching band as a color guard. She was also a member of the Art Club and was the club secretary for two years. She graduated high school in 2007.

Kat moved to Philadelphia, PA to attend college at Moore College of Art & Design in the Fashion Design program. Through her college career, Kat had artwork displayed on the Philadelphia Wall at Moore as a freshman and took part in the Art in City Hall in her junior year. Kat created four outside critic projects in children's wear, swimwear, men's wear, and evening wear. In her senior year, she created a five look collection, Night at the Heavy Metal Theater, that was inspired by music from Nightwish and Apocalyptica. Kat graduated from Moore in May, 2011 with her BFA in Fashion Design.

Kat is currently an Assistant Costume Design at the Players Guild Theater in Canton, OH. She is also working on her fashion and art studio, Cheshire Couture Studios, and has shown her Night at the Heavy Metal Theater collection at the RAW Cleveland showcase in April, 2012.

Cheshire Couture Studios
Cheshire Couture Studios is Quintessa's dream in the making. Cheshire Couture Studios is Quintessa's independent art, costume design, and fashion design studio. She is currently designing retro and vintage inspired fashion designs and comic book character inspired costumes. Quintessa is also getting a proper office space organized and set up to handle future commissions and projects.