Coming Full Circle

I love my work and the sense of accomplishment it brings. It gives me a feeling of self worth on a dark cloudy day. We all get dark days we just have to learn to chase them away. At any point in the day someone can call me and say, Sarah do you think this can be done? Or I have this idea do you think it is possible for you to help? My answer is let me see first and it will be a straight yes or no. I love designing it is in my blood pumping around making me dizzy with excitement. Every image you see on my blog is self taught. No-one has sat down with me and said Sarah this is how you should do this. My brain has been wired into breaking down the info it sees and rearranging it into what I believe it is. I can look at an image and see how it had begun in shapes and pieces and slowly rebuild.

The first thing I ever designed and made myself with no help was a Victorian cobalt blue dress. At that time I was thirteen years old, and my younger sister at the age of seven was doing Victorian day. I had hand stitched every piece together including the zip. We did not have the luxury of the internet then everything was done by reading books. I had an image in front of me and I slowly picked it to bits so my sister would look the part in class. That day she was so happy and I was so pleased that for once I had achieved something on my own.

The only time I achieved an A in class was in woodwork and design, but I was able to pick difficult designs. I remember my woodwork teacher saying Sarah you are the only person in class that picks a difficult design to make, Why? I did not reply, but I secretly smiled to myself because to me it was not difficult. A few months later I took the finished product home to show my dad. His reply was, Sarah the business belongs to your brother. In other words it was a waste of time trying to impress my dad. That to me was my darkest day because I was looking for a place to belong.

Shortly after that I showed an interest in long distance running. They would call me Zola Budd at school because I had no running shoes to speak of and looked like her. So I would run bared foot on track and take great pleasure out of running past my tormentors at secondary school. It was my escape and a dodge card to get to the showers before all the others, so I would not be bullied about my lack of breasts. I loved running, but my parents would not support this choice either. I stopped running/designing and resided to the fact I was going to be stacking shelves rather than something I enjoyed.

Now I am doing what I was supposed to be doing from the start. It is strange how we come full circle back to what gave you that first spark. Even when I do the 'Race for Life' it will have me reminiscing about where it all began.