Hello, my name is Maria. I am an artist.
This is usually the way to introduce yourself when asked: “Who are you?” Say your name and what you do. And then, somehow, the conversation revolves around the latter. That’s why we get used to identifying ourselves with the received education, skills and achievements, without really thinking about “Who am I?”
I would like to tell you about a little girl who secretly smelled her mum’s perfumes and lipsticks and dreamt of becoming a perfumer. I would like to. But I cannot.
I really poked my nose into all the bushes, pots and shops. But I did not want to become a perfumer, nor did I want to become an artist. I did not even suspect about the existence of the former, and I was regularly told about the latter, that those who draw “Must go to work”.
But you can’t stop dreaming and I was dreaming big. In the first grade I wanted to be a scientist, to be the smartest one and wear a white robe. From the third to fifth grade – to become a neurosurgeon and an airplane pilot. Simultaneously, even. But in the high school I realised that my vestibular system did not sign up for a pilot and it was time to land. So, the main choice was between microbiology / genetics and psychiatry. I decided to get closer to the brain, but from the other side.
After I failed the dictation, I went to an art school for a year, where I was surprised to find out that being an artist was actually a profession! I finally came to my senses at the academy, studying interior design, architecture and history of art and already having a diploma in ceramics, pedagogy and applied art.
This is a brief story, omitting 18 years of work as a designer and simultaneously as a technologist in my own cosmetics project.
I know, it may seem like I am a windy person, wandering around in search of my true self. And perfumery is just another emotional outburst. But it is not true. I have always known exactly who I am and what I want. It was only the very brevity of life that depressed me, the limited time and the necessity to make choices when I want to try everything.
Now I am 40 and I study natural sciences (biochemistry, astrophysics, quantum mechanics), psychiatry, physiology, art and history of art with the same passion. I still pee with boiling water when I see a plane in the sky.
Why, having got so many skills, do I still call myself an artist? Because it is the only thing I know for sure about myself. Everything else is just expression and expressive forms. Even the perfumes. That is why the photo above is not with blotters, as we usually see perfumers. I am who I am – the person behind the scenes.
Yours truly, Margie.