I definitely have the feeling that I'm an imposter when I tell people I'm a surface pattern designer. I have always thought of myself as creative and artistic, but I feel that I'm lacking when I compare my drawings and sketches to others. I know that we all have our own style and that we should compare ourselves, but that's hard to do, especially in this age of technology. However, even though I feel completely overwhelmed and struggling to find by artistic style, I will tell you that I am a surface pattern designer.
To give you a little background about myself, when I was younger and applying to college, I wanted to be an architect. However, being the daughter of immigrants, my choices were pretty slim. I ended up becoming a pharmacist and after practicing for several years, I hung up my lab coat and became a stay at home mom to three fantastic kids. Fast forward twenty years, here I am trying to figure out what I'm going to do once the last of my children head off to college.
I've always taught my kids to follow their dreams and passions because that wasn't an option for me. My oldest wants to change the world through creative means, my second wants to be a video game designer and my youngest a pastry chef. I often tell my friends and family that their creative inclinations came from me (sorry honey) and I am excited to see what they do with their lives.
During the years I stepped out from the healthcare arena, I taught myself many different skills including adobe illustrator, graphic design and web design.
Although I do enjoy making websites and creating print media pieces for my clients, I feel that my creativity is too constrained by what others want and I have been wish that there was something that could combine all the skills I learned over the years into one nice package.
One day in June, while I was happily immersed in a quilting challenge, I stumbled across a couple of surface pattern design accounts via Instagram. I was amazed. There are actually real artist and people behind all the fabric designs that I love! This realization blew my mind.
I decided to dig a little deeper and soon found myself staying up all night watching tutorials and reading articles about surface pattern design. It wasn't long afterwards that I tried my hand at creating a repeat pattern design and voila!
A new passion was born.
Ok. this is not really something that is even close to perfect, but it is my first successful repeat pattern and I'm addicted!.
Now, I know, for the first time in my life, what I want to be when I grow up.