About the artist

Antonina Vakhrushina is an artist and bear maker. She works from Samara, Russia, and her bears travel to collectors in many countries.

How it started

Before the bears, Antonina was a lawyer. It changed in 2012, when her daughter was born and she felt the urge to make something that would outlast a season and stay in a family. One body of law was traded for another — the one the hands work by.

Two strands of one practice

Antonina works along two connected lines: textile collectible bears and watercolour illustration. They feed each other — characters invented on paper move into fabric, and the finished bears become the heroes of watercolour scenes that later appear on merch: hoodies, sweatshirts, postcards, stickers.

That is why the work is recognisable at a glance: one world, one palette, one tone of voice — slightly naive, slightly theatrical, always warm.

How the work is made

Every stage is led by one person: pattern, cutting, assembly, the face, the wardrobe and the embroidery. The bear is built solidly, so it survives hugs, journeys and house moves without complaint. The face and all of the embroidery on the clothes are worked with a needle, stitch by stitch, without exception.

No production line, no editions, no assistants. Which is why only a small number of bears appear each year, and most find their person soon after joining the collection.

Teaching

A separate strand is teaching. Antonina runs video courses showing the whole process step by step, from pattern to final stitch — for people who would rather learn to make their own bear than buy one.

Where the stories come from

The characters come out of children's books, old postcards, theatre and ordinary domestic scenes. Hence the recognisable tone: the bear is not posing, it is busy — holding a toy, ready to travel, hiding something behind its back. That is why the work holds attention far longer than an ornament does.

The same principle runs through the watercolours: these are not portraits of bears but small stories in which every character has a part. Some of those scenes later move onto clothing and postcards, and the world becomes whole — the same characters live in fabric, on paper and on a hoodie.

Where the bears end up

The bears go to adult collectors — a shelf, a display cabinet, a child's room as decoration rather than a plaything. Some are bought as gifts, some for the buyer's own collection, and quite often someone comes back for a second bear: a collection tends to start without anyone deciding to begin one.