A creative journey is like the life journey; full of surprises, ups, and downs, adventures, challenges, good days and bad days, joys and sorrows, but mostly a learning experience.
Like life itself, you never know where this journey will take you. My creative journey has taken me to unimaginable places. I am not talking about real places like countries. I am talking about "state of mind places", about new knowledge, about new art mediums, new possibilities, new joys, new challenges, new connections.
My creative journey didn't start when I made my first ceramics to sell in stores in 1996. It started when I was a kid. While in church what I loved most was painting the storybook images with crayons. At nine I learned to crochet and when in middle school I gathered a bunch of friends and taught them to make a coin purse in order to raise money for the class day party.
As soon as I learned to sew at middle school and watched my mom and sisters making their own clothes I started making my own. I was raised in a very poor family and my dad couldn't afford to buy clothes for all of us, a family of 13. I had to sew for some neighbors in order to have money to buy fabric and make my clothes. I was only 15.
Also in middle school, I learned to make flowers with different materials, and later in high school, I created earrings with Ric Rac ribbon. I made them in all colors and with all kinds of ric rac. I earned my money for selling the earrings to my high school friends. The earrings were a hit and I really loved them. I also made all my dresses for the senior class activities, including my graduation dress. I sewed two complete suits for my brother. I didn't have the information and support necessary to choose a career based on my creative talents. Because of my grades and talent in mathematics, I ended up graduating from Industrial Engineering and later finished a master's in Engineering management.
I never stopped making crafts, sewing, and learning new things not related to my professional career while studying and then while working. It was funny that as soon as I graduated I wanted to get a certification for selling my crafts. I have never regretted all those years spent getting my professional degree and working as an industrial engineer and professor. Everything matters and everything shapes you. All those things are part of my life, my journey, my experience, my knowledge.
While raising my kids I tried to be more present and I quit my job as an engineer. Even in those years I never stopped creating things. I continued sewing for me and then for my sons. I wished I had a girl so I could sew her clothes but it didn't happen.
Now I have three granddaughters (and a bit more time to spend sewing). I learned I could make clothes for my sons and started painting T-Shirts for girls and boys and later sold them to a kid's boutique in the main mall in Puerto Rico, Plaza Las Americas.
I designed a few knit clothes painted with acrylics and they were a hit. The store even produced a fashion show with all my designs. My kids were really young by that time and I was working really hard to comply with the orders. After a meningitis episode with one of my sons, I quit making kids clothes and sewing for other people.
On one of my trips to the old San Juan I fell in love with ceramics. I started learning ceramics while I was working as a part-time teacher and later as a college professor. I didn't have the intention of selling my ceramics art until people started asking to buy them.
In 1996 and after a ceramic workshop where the most important thing I learned was that I could "construct" anything from clay slabs, I made my first sale to a store in my hometown. Making ceramics for me was just "constructing": cutting pieces and attaching them together to create what I had in my mind. It was love at first sight and I couldn't stop creating new ceramic things on my mind. Making ceramics and then selling them to stores changed my life and took me to a very different path.
I continued teaching at college but never stopped creating ceramics. In 2001 an after my divorce I found the most loving store in the Old San Juan to sell my ceramics, Puerto Rican Art and Crafts. I was in need of additional income and that store was a gift for me.
I still sell ceramics to that store and have created hundreds of different ceramic products. In 2002 Avon Puerto Rico contacted me because they loved my ceramic and wanted to reproduce a few. The made 11 pieces and it was a great experience. I knew very little then about licensing. The contract was not in my favor but I am still very grateful for the experience. When my mom saw my piece in the cover of the AVON catalog she said to me: "this is what you have to do". Words of wisdom that I couldn't understand at that moment.
In the next post, I will share more of my creative journey, the adventures, the decisions, the challenges, and how I found a more self-fulfilling path through meditating, praying and letting the Divine (God) guide me.
NOTE: Writing about my creative journey is part of my desire to live and work with INTENTION. I have made many mistakes and learning from them let me change for good. Writing about my journey helps me heal and understand me more. It is my hope to live a more fulfilling life doing what I love with the right intention while living an abundant life.
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