A few words about me

I never meant to be anything but a musician. My education was in music. I played classical piano and saxophone from early childhood and for a long time the path ahead felt straightforward — keep practicing, keep performing. I even got a scholarship to study jazz at Webster University in St. Louis, MO. I had THE best time there: learning and performing with some great jazz bands.

Later on though, I realised I didn’t really want any of the music life after all, so I needed to find a new direction. I threw off the creative horse completely and fell into working for large corporations, planning forecasts and demand. Even though I met some amazing people along the way, I have to admit - I was NEVER in my life SO BORED of my job. It was numbing. I decided something had to change or I will be stuck here forever. I tried Make-Up Artistry (and was pretty good at it), I was searching for that creative outlet that will also bring me and my family a good life.

I began drawing again, just like in high school: portraits, still life, and studies of nature. Eventually I discovered tattooing, which was exhilarating for a while, until Covid arrived and closed doors on my plans once more.

Shortly after, I got pregnant with our second son. I remembered all the illustrations I did when I was tattooing, all the roses and flashes… I was playing with Illustrator and Photoshop to see how I can make it work digitally. I was coming up with different variations of my shapes and googling how to make it work as a pattern on clothing. I remember coming across Spoonflower around that time too and even submitting my design for a challenge/art call (that design DID NOT seamlessly repeat AT ALL ;-) - it only repeated as Illustrator pattern so of course I thought it was enough.

But at that time, I already caught the surface pattern design bug. I was DETERMINED to make it work and here I am. Through many trials and errors, a complete inability to stick to one thing at a time (Gosh, I wish someone showed me how to time manage better from Day 1, I’d be GOLD now!).

In late 2023 I won a wallpaper design competition for Ayara Home, and after that, as people like to say, the rest is history.