Finally I bit the bullet and started my own blog! This site is created through close mentoring and stewardship with my teacher, Anu Ilo, and my school, Oulu area polytechnic college. I am studying jewelry design, focusing on silver, gold, and using the methods such as 3D-printing and machining to create my jewelry.
This first blog post is also a school assignment; basically my teacher told me to start a blog! 🙂 To be honest, doesn’t that make a lot of sense? I mean, a blog lets you, the reader to jump into my world, and I get to share the wonders of studying jewelry design in northern Finland.
- History. Where have you been?
I have been all over Europe and United States, but Originally I’m from Keväjärvi, Finland. It’s a small Skolt Sápmi resettlement village. My grandparents and my parents lived there, and for years, three generations of security and comfort existed. Then my parents split up, and my grandparents passed away very closely in years. I was heartbroken, and ever since then I have been on the road. I lived in Austria for a bit in a soon-to-be disastrous relationship, after which I went to find my luck in Ireland. That I where I met my husband, and we moved to his home country, United States. We started a tattoo shop, and I went through a whole bunch of careers, from a social support person to nurse’s aide, to massage therapist. In 2012 I was signed on as a jewelry apprentice with my now dear friend Monica Hansmeyer, and I pretty much was done seeking careers elsewhere. I enjoyed every part of being alone, in her workshop, focusing on the process of creating her jewelry. I also did a tattoo apprenticeship under my husband, Mike. In the Spring of 2017 I started to feel more tired that usual, working on the jewelry in Monica’s workshop, that I became worried that I had grown tired of making jewelry. But I was actually pregnant, five months along! That is how I ended up back in Finland, to give birth to my beautiful baby boy, and to somehow close a circle that started when I left, I thought for good.
To finalize my school assignment, I enjoy spending time with my son, and I play games online with my friends. I also like to create art in all sorts of mediums.
2. Present
Where am I now? Well now I live in Kaukovainio, or more familiar, Kaketsu. I am very keen on starting my studies. I would love to learn different techniques and I am eager to try them and see if the fit with my own esthetic. This is something should be definitely emphasized in design-based learning; a student should really focus on trying out different things, to see if that specific technique is their cup of tea.
3. Future
I’d like to have a future where my career supports my mobile lifestyle, and where my career doesn’t come at the expense of my family life. I enjoy tattooing, but over the years I’ve grown weary of accommodating to my clients’ schedule, and I’m ready to have a day job. I do enjoy tattooing, I just think I’m more personally suitable for working alone and submerging myself in the creative work, and that is hard to do in tattooing, mainly due to my ”canvas” being another human being. In tattooing I also create the visions that my client’s have of their body, and not my own vision. I would also like to succeed to the point where I will have plenty for retirement. Being the age I am, I do think about my later years and how settled I will be quite a bit.
4. The Road
How will will I get to my destination? Networking nationally and internationally will be necessary, as well as marketing, and expanding beyond the market I have already formed: I already have some rudimentary ideas and networks for getting my designs to my deserving clients, but I know in order to succeed I must expand, and take on projects and experimentations that I otherwise wouldn’t.
5. Measures of success
I will know I have reached my destination by how I will feel: Will I have enough work to employ myself, perhaps expand and create jobs? Will I feel like if I took the time to go exploring to another country, I could financially do so? Will important and influential designers want to cooperate with me? Will I feel like going forward in my education, and not cause distress to my business. My ultimate goal would be to create the type of legacy that my children will want to develop further and lead.
So this is my first assignment, day one. I hope I entertained you, and also made you think of your own personal life goals, and if your actions today are helping you reach those goals.
-Love, Erja.