Childhood dreams
I have been creative ever since I was a child. I drew pictures since I learned to hold a pencil. My 3D constructions in paper started when I was about 10 and shortly after I also experimented with oil and acrylic paint.
I liked making something, create a story, let my imagination take flight. Take something that was nothing, and turn it into something funny, beautiful and useful.
Throughout my childhood and into my youth I have always thought of my creative abilities as a hobby that I could not use for anything special. I secretly dreamt of becoming an artist and an author and do what I am actually good at but I never said it out loud. What I had to do with my life had nothing to do with drawing, painting or writing. I have always been told that you can’t live of making drawings and becoming an author was very difficult. It was clear from the beginning that writing and being creative was only for fun, and that I had to find “serious” work as an adult. But now my childhood dreams have become my lifestyle!
Nature inspires
I find my inspiration in nature and animals. Animals have always been fascinating to me and I love to go into depth with their color, traits and posture. Many of my motives are animals, both old pets, wild animals of the jungle or the creatures of the Danish landscape. It gives me peace to be close to animals, and I am continuously working on a series of art called “the Girl and…” which shows a girl’s connection to nature or animals in the middle of God’s creation. When have you last sat down and felt connected? With God, with your hopes, with the beauty of the nature that surrounds you?
My waking nightmare
In my teen years, not long after I started boarding school, something strange began to happen at night. I woke up, but even though I was awake, I was still dreaming and I could not move. I started fearing the nights. Sometimes I could feel it coming as soon as I laid my head down and I jumped up and walk around until I finally was so exhausted that I tried to sleep again. It could happen several times a week.
I never mentioned this to anyone but as I also started falling from time to time I was sent to the hospital for tests anyway. They never found anything wrong with me and I never told anyone about the waking nightmares. Time passed by. After a misdiagnosis and several examinations I gave up on finding the right diagnosis.
The forgotten dream
in the meantime I got married to Jesper in 2012 and I continued on the higher preparatory examination program that I had also given up earlier. I had sold a drawing now and then and published a short story on an amateur author website but it was still not what I was supposed to do – I thought. I imagined that work should be something “serious” – a “real” job. The fact that being creative was not seen as something serious or real by those who gave me this advice hurt deep inside my heart. I was just too afraid of failing, too afraid they would be right, to try and follow my creative dream.
Because of illness the goal was eventually to finish the exam without knowing what to do with my life afterwards. Just to know that I could. If I could.
The diagnosis
Finally I found an answer! I got a new doctor after moving and tried one more time to get a diagnosis. After going back and forth between Thisted, Viborg and Aalborg, where I at some point also got the diagnosis migraines, I ended up in the epilepsy hospital called Filadelfia in Dianalund in 2015. I had turned 28 when I finally discovered that I suffered from Narcolepsy type 1. The symptoms had become more severe when I turned 16 but had actually started when I was a child, maybe 10-12 years old.
That was the reason I was sometimes falling! It all made sense now. Narcolepsy had always been a huge obstacle I could never pass. But then what should I do with my life? I had given up on the exam. What use was it to even try when I did not have the same amount of energy as the other students and always got behind? It was too big a fight.
I found my way
With a years maternity leave after our third child, I recovered from the stress, and with the thought that I did not want my husband to carry the burden of our finances alone I decided to go back and give the higher preparatory examination program one last try. I also had in mind that I would afterwards find something that I could work with without breaking me.
While expecting our fourth and last child I continued with the classes in 2018. One day I was sitting in the school cafeteria and making some sketches. A man asked me if I was going to be an artist because I was so good. Right then I realised it. That is what I am going to do! I had recently sold a drawing and now I just knew. I replied that I already was!
Why would God have given me this creative curiosity and put in my heart the urge to draw, paint, write and build in paper and other materials if it was not to use it? Of course it was to use it. And I would also write a book!
Things finally started happening – i passed the exam. I published my first book in 2020, made an art exhibition, sold some original art and we discovered that specialty stores loved to buy greeting cards with drawings of local attractions. We now sell greeting cards to several cities in Denmark including Thisted, Nykøbing, Århus and Copenhagen.
Only the beginning
There was a time period in which we tried out many different things. We made posters, merchandise, designs and different types of print on top of making the usual commissioned art, own ideas and exhibitions while also opening a store in the pedestrian zone in Thisted called THY ART. It was an exciting process but we discovered it was too much and a store did not fit into our every day life. So far we are back to working from home. But we have learned many things from this process. We still make greeting cards and sell art and if you have an idea for a project we are open to try something new.
Jesper has a half time job but is responsible for the administration of our business and much of the practical work. I am grateful that even though there have been many ups and downs with my health, diagnosis, medicine, finishing the exam, the experience with having a store and having four lovely children we can have an every day life where we see each other and can make our goals together and start new projects. This is not the end of our story but the beginning of the rest of our lives together and I am excited to see what our future will look like!
Follow Maria on instagram and facebook to see how it is going today.
