My path to REAL LIVES
The interconnectedness of it all or how many careers make a life.
Educated as a classical ballet dancer, an art historian and a jewellery maker and designer, I probably incorporate some of the most unique career aspirations in a western, educated world. Add my experience in sales, cultural management and art communication which are the jobs I happened to be doing throughout my studies in Vienna and Florence and you got a mix of qualifications that to some of you might sound completely random.
Apart from making a few very distinct choices, like going to ballet school at the age of four or studying art history, I can tell you that I did not exactly plan out to draw from manifold experiences to make a career. The jobs that paid my rent as a student found me more than I searched for them. My mother was head of the front house staff at the Wiener Festwochen Theatre Festival so she hired me as part of the team. I quickly climbed up the ladder to be supervisor and assistant.
About the same time, I started my position at the Kaufhaus Schiepek, a hip bead shop in Vienna’s first district. The boss hired me mainly because I had known her shop as a DIY costumer for years. In fact, I started my two ultimate careers, cultural manager and jewellery designer, by chance while actually studying to be an art historian.
Finishing my studies, I moved to Florence to study gold smithing less than a kilometre away from the artisan gold dealers of the Ponte Vecchio. For the next three years, I learned the craft, strengthened my skills and broadened my concepts of design, working alongside generations of Goldsmiths. Never content to wear blinders, my past experience led me to take on the role of assistant project leader organising cultural events and exhibitions for the school. To pay for my life and studies in Florence, during the summers, I worked in Liechtenstein archiving a private art collection as an art historian; work that continues today.
Finally done with my studies, at the age of 33, most people find it hard to understand why I still do all these different things.
“But, you have to focus on only one thing to be successful!”
“Why don’t you do what you like most?”
“Can you earn any money like that?”
My replies seldom seem to help, either.
“What means successful to you?”
“All of them together fulfill me but not one on its own.”
“With what else should I earn money?”
Be it ignorance or merely trusting myself, I learned to listen less and less to what people had to say. What they do not understand is that my feet, my hands and my brain are discreet parts of my body that function differently yet complementary to each other. I was eager to find a way to combine my abilities and experiences into one whole professional activity.
The only valid question is whether these skills and interests I have groomed over the years can, actually, build a homogeneous life. Well, they do and they don’t. To me it is a matter of interconnectedness and of seeing the same process in a diversity of projects: inspiration, conceptualisation, implementation, collaboration, communication and validation.
I see the process as universal, even though the outcome is always specific to the medium. It hinges upon understanding the essence of a project and finding a way to communicate the same to target audiences.
Communication happens on different levels of course, it may happen in writing, visual composition or speech. They are all the same to me. They are all part of the same process, all of them used at different stages of the process in any process. Communication is like a choreography. All composed of signs, symbols and clues. All made by collaborating body parts that have different functions.
And then there was REAL LIVES
Then I met Mark. I had heard this man speaking perfect Italian and English in my favourite Piazza in Florence, Santo Spirito; my curiosity motivated me to chat him up. From time to time, I had seen him communicating with anybody who passed or enjoying solitude in the middle of Florence’s frenetic city life in the same measure.
In the end, it took us one casual date for coffee, one clearly romantic date for drinks and an exhibition opening to understand, that we were going to be more than just acquaintances. I soon found out that I had found someone who shared a need to fill life with many different cultures, professions and experiences in a holistic, intuitive way.
Thinking on many levels and layers is what connects me and Mark strongly. Everything is possible: everything is possible material, everything is possible subject, everything relates to one another and everything can be implemented.
As a world curious person, I see beauty and joy everywhere I look. I do not ignore the fact that many things are going wrong in this world, today. However, I tend to focus on spreading positive solutions for the present instead of complaining about the problems of a broken system from the past.
Knowing what is wrong is one thing, but embracing an idea of what is healthy and joyful is my personal challenge. Communicating with people from different places and cultures, sharing experiences and knowledge with others and celebrating the diversity of this world in all its forms of expression is what I prefer to do and what I enjoy.
Mark’s vision is similar; he sees the light in the densest muck. He can focus on and nurture the little things that you can find in the darkest places of your brain, your life and your world. We share the will to experience and share beautiful, artistic, human and exciting endeavours of real people from cultures and places around the world. We are both drawn to see the commonalities in people’s desires and ideas rather than what divides us. Our focus on the widespread diversity of cultural expression reflects our own creativity and curiosity.
Everything I do is a project — so REAL LIVES is no different to me. Only that it truly allows me to combine all my skills, all my experience, all aspects of my personality, all my curiosity and traveling to my dream destinations.
Sounds cheesy, I know, but I do have proof. At least in theory, after considering all my possible projects and activities together with Mark, REAL LIVES turns out to be the one that would provide the most satisfaction to us and is the most sustainable. It allows us to research cultural heritage, to travel to unknown places, to transmit traditional crafts, to immerse in new cultures, to taste worldly delights, to write about our experience, to create film and jewellery, to introduce you to surprising people, to marvel at the beauty of nature, to connect with communities, to witness the present, to dream about the future. Obviously I am in to try!
“A project is as diverse as the people behind it.” Sophie Beer
