I subscribed to Kim Klassen's online class 'Beyond Layers' a few weeks ago and I'm already soo behind....
Anyway I created this blog exclusively for the prompts and exercises of 'Beyond Layers' and this is my first post, the story of my creative life....
My creative life story
Soo – we've got no power this
morning, that means nothing to do for me, that I normally do, like
starting washing machine and dryer, dishwasher, machine sewing,
internet....
I can only type on my laptop which is
fully charged fortunately.
I've procrastrinated for a long time to
finally write my creative life story....writing is definitely not one
of my skills.... But I'm very good in procrastrinating...lol
Well let's begin...
I'm Uli, I was born almost 47 years ago
in Germany/Bavaria, I was my parents' only child, my parents were
already rather old, when I was born (Mum 41 and Dad 50), but I think
having a baby so late kept them young.
I had a very happy childhood, growing
up in a middle town and having a fair bunch of friends.
In general I enjoyed being an only
child, although sometimes I wished I had a sister.
I think I was creative from an early
age, the earliest memories are from primary school though.
My dad was a good painter, he was a
trained pottery artist, but due to war times and his financial
situation post war, he had to do something else for a living. He
worked in a bank until he retired. But he painted, sculpted and
created basically his whole life long (He passed away two years ago
at the age of 94)
He always supported me in my creative
endeavors.
I always loved drawing and painting and
modelling with (polymer)clay, I made dolls and barbie clothes and
puppets on a string, painted rocks, made polymer clay beads and
jewelry....I wanted to be a designer. but unfortunately that never
worked out for me. I applied for a study several times, but never was
accepted. So I started studying social work, but eventually realized
that this was not the right profession for me. I finished my study
anyway, but then actually never worked as a social worker. Then I
studied naturopathy, and graduated there, too. Was self employed for
a couple of years as a naturopath, but that wasn't IT for me either.
I felt I was too sensitive and not really able to detach from my
clients' drama. Meanwhile my three children had been born, my
daughter is now 19 and my sons are 17 and 13. So the past years I was
mainly a SAHM who never stopped being creative though.
My mum taught me to sew as a child
(well actually I taught myself and she helped me, when needed) and
sewing has since then been an important part of my life. As a
teenager my best friend and I sewed clothes out of old bed sheets and
then dyed them in the washing machine....and we actually wore
them...lol
Some time at the age of 15 or 16 I
discovered patchwork and since then I've been hooked.
At that time in Germany nobody did
patchwork, there were no books available – apart from one small
paperback in black and white and this one became my 'bible' for a
while.... I cut the pieces with scissors and used old fabric – you
see, I did it the old way, like the american settlers did....
There were times when patchwork
disappeared from my life almost completely, but I always came back to
it.
When my daughter was a baby I sewed
clothes for her, then a baby quilt and I met another young mother who
loved sewing and patchwork as much as I did and we became best friend
and participated in several patchwork classes together (and
discovered the rotary cutter ...lol). Later she taught classes
herself (she is a trained tailor).
In 2006 I started designing and sewing
patchwork pillows and baby quilts and selling them on ebay. Shortly
after that I started my own (still very small today) business and
moved from ebay to dawanda (the German 'etsy') where I run two shops
at the moment selling my patchwork and textile art.
Well like I said, my business is really
small and I'd like to expand it, but I'm slightly overwhelmed with it
as it is, I doubt that I can put much more effort in it. I struggle
with managing household, family and business.... And my family isn't
supportive at all. They don't see it as work what I do... I need to
learn to stand up for myself and not let anyone constantly drag me
down. I'm the happiest when I can create and yet I often struggle to
even begin to create, because I always feel guilty for not doing
household chores properly and feel overwhelmed by all the daily
chores that need to be done and those things that I want to do, that
often I don't do anything at all. And this makes me feel even more
guilty. This is actually my biggest thing to manage.....
Last year my mother who lived next
door, moved into a retirement home and now I own her house, which I
want to turn into a studio/shop/exhibition room thingy. I basically
just paint everything white, because proper remodeling would be too
expensive, but for rooms where nobody needs to live in, it's okay.
Actually I wanted to be finished last
October, but I'm nowhere near the end....
Again....my family doesn't support me
at all, so I have to do it all alone and I'm often sorry for
myself....lol But some day I'll be done, I know that! About every
three months I finish one room (although one could easily finish a
room in two weeks...), I've three rooms to finish yet.....
So this was more or less the creative
story of my life....to be continued....
As I'm such a great procrastrinator I
hope I'll manage to stick to the 52 weeks of beyond layers – once
I've begun. Must catch up with the first three weeks yet.....
love to all – I love to read all your
stories (a few at a time)
Uli
