Ramblings About my Life Path

Jewellery making has only been a part of my life for a very short while. Just about a year, in fact. But I just fell into it so naturally.

I’m a very curious person. I get easily fascinated, especially with creative fields and I like change and new inspiration. Over the years I have consumed courses in all manner of areas. I started with illustration, my very first serious love. From there it is an easy step into storytelling and writing short stories and fairy tales. 

With stories came interactive stories and computer games. I remember playing adventure games (the ones that mostly tell a story, with some good cerebral challenges thrown in) with my dad and sister and being awed with the thought – Some people do this for a living, getting paid to write adventures, paint lovely pictures to go with them and program them to work. I love writing, programming and illustrating in almost equal measures. The thought of having such a versatile job where all the parts of the brain were being challenged seemed like a dream to me.

I was brought up with a very practical sense, though, and everyone told me that illustrators don’t make money – they just scrape by and working in the game industry was like saying “I want to be a rockstar”. Yet I knew I wanted something creative, so I searched for a niche that I would be happy with. I had a brief fling with fashion design. I spent a year in Florence learning the language and hand sewing complicated outfits. The stay in Italy was awesome, the sewing not so much.

I then got a Masters Degree in Interactive Multimedia – Well, almost. They didn’t pass me on that final project. I think they wanted to see something more arty than a musical computer game. My creations never seem to conform to what the establishment call “real” art. Since then I have worked as a game designer (Turns out the games industry loves what I can do). It has been tons of fun, but my eye always strays towards new things and challenges. 
I have taken courses in writing, photography, drawing, painting, mixed media, jewellery making (of course), altering, journaling and Leonardo da Vinci. He is my idol – always looking to new things, fluttering like a butterfly – flirting with new subjects and new possibilities. I think he was looking for a better understanding of everything  - the bigger picture.

This is what drives me too. I think all my different obsessions feed into the same understanding. My painting feeds my writing, feeds my jewellery feeds my photography feeds my game design.

Besides the bigger picture, what I am seeking is first of all expression. Everyone has a unique voice; however they choose to use it. I like trying new areas and finding that voice again in a new outfit. Does that make sense?

When I started making jewellery it didn’t feel like a completely new career – it felt like a new set of techniques to say the same thing. I absolutely love it. Jewellery Design is going to be with me for a very long time.

Why being multilingual helps you understand your spoon better

I’ve been a Dane living in England for about 12 years now. I love living here and have almost gotten rid of my accent, but not quite. People get a confused look on their face and ask “Where are you from?”

I tell them and they invariably assure me that I speak the language very well. It used to bug me as I thought “Obviously not well enough to fool you.” But now I like the opportunity to talk about languages and origins. It’s an easy way to share something with a stranger.

English people (who are not multilingual) usually adopt one of two approaches. They applaud my language skills and then either show regret that they don’t know more than one language themselves, or they laugh that they don’t know more than one language pointing out that they were born with the “right” one.

I casually comment that I don’t think they know how much they miss by not having two languages and that once you’ve learned two, the third and fourth are so much easier and that it can vastly improve your command of your own language. Then we invariably move on to other subjects mainly because it sounds like I’m lecturing at this point, but really I’m just trying to share something interesting. I'll indulge myself here.

The Spoon Analogy

Imagine that you had only ever seen and owned one spoon. It’s a very good spoon; in fact it is a tea spoon in silver, an heirloom from your grandma. It has filigree on the handle and a little porcelain inset. It is perfectly weighted and extremely useful. You know this spoon so well. You know what it weighs in your hand, how much it can hold, what sound it makes when banged on glass, wood, or a little brass bell.

Since you have never seen another spoon, everything about it defines what a spoon is; the colour, the length, the material, the shape, the taste, the texture.

Now along comes someone else and hand you another spoon. It is very different from your own; it looks like a wooden ladle more than anything. The guy says it’s a spoon, but you have trouble believing him. It’s not gray, it’s not cold to the touch, the shape is all wrong and the sound it makes pathetic. 

But the guy insists and he has credentials, so you make an effort to include it in your definition of spoon. By comparing the two you begin to understand what makes a spoon a spoon. It has a handle to hold on to, but the length doesn’t matter, it has a bowl of some sort to hold liquid, but the bowl can be deep or shallow, oval, round or even square. 

The pattern of similarities between your two spoons begins to make sense, and suddenly you are in a position to judge what purpose your spoon best serves. The size of your tea spoon is rather more convenient for carrying around and for stirring a delicate teacup; the wooden ladle opens up different opportunities, though. Suddenly eating soup doesn’t have to take an hour before you’re full, but you now have to be careful because the new spoon retains the heat of the soup rather better.

When another person comes along with a third spoon – this one is made of blue silicone and has a thermometer in the handle – you will not only recognise it for a spoon, but immediately understand in which situations this spoon would serve your better. It slots right into your now vastly improved definition of a spoon.

Knowing more than one language shows you a lot about how people categorize and comprehend things in general, not just how languages are made. It affords you a peep at the matrix of our brains, and different trends and patterns in another language give you some understanding about the culture it evolved in. I think it is fascinating.

This is why I shake my head when people giggle at a last name like Koch, but can’t understand why I would find the word “foxing” – a term describing paper discolouration – amusing. See the difference?