"Those who can love are happy"

(Hermann Hesse)

This sentence by Hermann Hesse has been with me for many years. For me, it means that in everything we do, there should be "love" that fills us with happiness.

So I set out to seek and find the activities that I can do with dedication and love.

The longer this search went on, the clearer it became to me that a profession should be a calling!

The Path and the Fear

On this path of searching for one's life purpose, one inevitably encounters fear sooner or later. And then the process truly begins. The path becomes impassable, it sometimes completely ceases to exist, and you stumble through the thicket in the dark.

But just as everything in life follows natural rhythms, so does this. After the night comes the day. Rugged terrain becomes a new viable path.

In my early twenties, I would have never thought that my life path would lead me to become a painter and artist. As a graduate of a Waldorf school, creative work became second nature to me, but it was only after finishing school that I realized how much I missed painting and how much I truly love being creative.

As long as I can remember, it has been clear to me that I would eventually have to write my stories. So my first career wish, quite clear and unequivocal, was to be a writer.

In my family, many write and almost all paint, but an artistic profession as a means of earning a living? That's not possible, you can't live off that!… I carried this false belief with me for a very long time until I eventually shed and lost it somewhere in the rugged terrain of life's path.

Beliefs and apparent detours

These false beliefs initially led me to not consider pursuing my creative endeavors more concretely in a professional context, so I chose a scientific-technical study.

But when I completed my Master's in Environmental and Bio-Resource Management in 2018, with distinction, I had also learned to love scientific research.

And so it was indeed right and important to initially take a different scientific path.

So, the time I spent working on my master's thesis remains one of the most beautiful periods of my life to this day. As a token of appreciation for my efforts regarding my thesis on Anacamptis morio (Orchidaceae) – Green-winged Orchid – I received a scientific award from the City of Vienna in 2018.

Das Ei des Phönix

But it shouldn't go any further for me as a researcher.

My studies, rather technical than scientific and biological, unfortunately did not provide a good foundation to find a PhD position afterwards.

And a few times I also veered off just before the opportunity to work scientifically and chose the uncertain life of an artist.

This back and forth between my artistic endeavors and the desire to work scientifically is like a dance around an egg that has not yet fully hatched and from which, when the time comes, a phoenix will emerge, symbolizing a new self-chosen life.

First steps, or also the hatching of the egg

I am a person who wants to bring their own ideas into the world, and so in the autumn of 2020, I began working on my first real art project, the nature conservation art project "The Orchids of the Danube-Auen National Park".

And with that, the first step was taken; I stepped out of the thicket in which I had lost myself professionally and onto a path that has since been before me. Where this path will lead me, will reveal itself. But one thing is certain, that I will walk this path in love, step by step, consistent and brave!