Since you've all been so forthcoming in terms of who you are and where you're from and since I've had a number of questions on the subjuct I thought I'd tell you a bit more about myself.
I'm fortythree years old, was adopted at the age of 9 months and was brought up by a German mom and Swede Finn dad in Helsinki, Finland. We moved to Stockholm, Sweden, when I was four and I went to the French school in Stockholm from the age of seven until eighteen. My parents met over a tube of toothpaste in Antwerp, Belgium, where mom was a hair dresser and dad was working a sales rep out of Paris, France, for a major hair care product company, hence the French language connection.
I had the best childhood, being an only child and being somewhat spoilt :) My summers were spent in southern Germany on the Swiss border at my grandma's place and at my aunt's and uncle's farmhouse in Schwartzwald, the Black Forest. As a teenager I also traveled abroad on language courses. Today I speak Swedish, English, German and French somewhat fluently. I can also get by in Italy if I must... I feel bad about not speaking Finnish though, having lived there. I can understand a little but that's it. Wish I knew more.
Martin and I met on New Years Eve in 1987 as I worked at the IKEA headoffices, down south in Sweden. We have a mutual friend who was my collegue at the time. After having had a long distance relationship for over a year I moved back to Stockholm and left IKEA where I had worked as an interior designer. I started out as a trainee there and apart from that have no formal design training.
Since I left IKEA in 1989 I have worked mainly with window displays at different companies and department stores in Stockholm. I've also worked on museum exhibitions. The past seven years though I've been in the same company. I'm in charge of the visual merchandising for two chains of shops with a total of 150 shops. I choose the themes for the marketing campaigns and I buy all the props, promotional items and giftwrap for the two chains. It's a job a lot of people would kill for but to be quite honest I'm bored with it.
What I do is come up with ten to twelve campaign themes a year x 2. Sounds exciting right? It was the first time around but seven years later I feel I'm repeating myself. The company I work for is quite traditional and the work I do needs to be very commercial. I don't have a problem with that. It's just that after doing fourteen Valentines' Day campaign, fourteen Easters, fourteen Christmases and a million other in between campaigns it's just not very exciting anymore. To answer the question "how does my day job inspire my home projects?" the answer is simply it doesn't. I wish I could say it was the other way around but it isn't really. I try to bring some of my own personal esthetics into my work but have realised they are just not commercial enough.
I have come to the conclusion that there are soooooooooooooo many other exciting things to do in life besides from working 37.75 hour weeks. I want to spend more time with Wille, who is fourteen. I want more time for projects around the house. I want more time for my own little projects, like the blog, like my etsy shop etc etc.
My problem though is that I'm too chicken. I'm too afraid to take the plunge. Too afraid to let go of a steady income. Too many bills to pay every month and too many things to buy.
I have set a deadline for myself though. I refuse to stay on my job for more than a total of ten years which means I need to quit within a couple of years. I have also made the decision to work less hours so hopefully I'll be working four day weeks instead of five, starting this fall. Still need to run it by the boss though...
So what shall I do for a living after I quit my job? Any suggestions are highly appreciated and will definitely be taken into consideration.
Family photos by Olavi Kaskisuo.
