How my Mother’s Creative Passions Inspired my Dream to do Interior Design
My childhood was coated in sequins and glitter, tangled up in sewing threads and the laces of dance shoes.
Yes, those sparkly gals flashing jazz hands are me. The costumes are designer, and that designer just so happened to be my mother. This is the story of a creative woman who raised creative women and how she shaped the life I lead today as an interior designer.
Every Hero has an Origin Story
My mother learned to sew in the fourth grade. Growing up, the kids she knew didn’t really spend time watching television. This didn’t matter much, seeing as there weren’t any other girls her age to play with in the neighborhood. Instead, she spent a lot of her time with her grandmother and aunt, learning to sew from the original masters.
She made embroidery, cross stitchings, and even knitted from time to time. Nowadays, when you ask a group of people if any of them know how to sew, you’ll most likely come up short. That wasn’t the case for the crowds my mother surrounded herself with.
Soon this hobby became a true passion. Isn’t that the story for all true creatives? She grew up and carried that passion with her into parenthood, hence the timeless photos scattered throughout this blog, forever embedded into the internet for the world to see forever and ever.
Mother Sews Best!
As a kid, I performed in many dance recitals — everything from Cinderella to Babes in Toyland to the Wizard of Oz. When the dance group discovered my mother’s sewing skills, they immediately asked her to design the costumes for our shows.
My mother worked as a part-time dental hygienist since it gave her the opportunity to raise a family and pursue her passions, such as sewing. But my mom is a get-stuff-done kinda lady, so this hobby naturally led her to head a committee of women dedicated to designing our dance costumes.
Together, they’d go fabric shopping and write (perhaps vague) instructions on how to create every individual costume for our productions. They’d pass out paper bags to each dancer’s parents filled with tissue paper patterns designed by my mother alongside folded pieces of fabric. In any given dance recital, there were about 75 unique costumes to be designed, and from those prototypes 1,500 hand-sewn costumes were created!
It was a lot of work, but my mother loved it. She loved the way our dance recitals looked unlike any other. She loved creating a costume you couldn’t find anywhere else. It fed her creative passion. But more than anything, she felt fulfilled to see her sketches come to life on the stage, bringing joy to others and enhancing our dance performances.
Like Mother, Like Daughter
I didn’t grow up in what many would deem a “traditional” American household.
My father did all of the cooking, and thank goodness for that! My mother will be the first to say that she is not a cook. She never enjoyed it the way she enjoys working in the yard and her garden.
While my father worked a lot, so did my mother, and my parents often shifted and shared the roles our society tells us each to fall into as parents.
This shaped my own household. My kids recognize my husband as the force that gets dinner on the table and keeps the house in order, all while working very hard at his own job. I’m often out of the house, working on my business, or holed up in my office making sure my clients are happy.
It’s always been important to my mother and me that we raise our children to understand that we are each unique members of a family and cannot be contained by the roles our world tells us we need to uphold.
As my mom tells it, “You can’t be a mom 24/7. You have to have some time to yourself.” She encouraged us to pursue our own passions, maybe always hoping we’d find something creative to fall into.
She gave me the drive, dedication and courage to pursue my creative dreams, to work full-time as an interior designer. Sometimes we’re given permission to be more than what the world expects of us, and I took hold of that truth.
I love my mom. She’s a part of who I am as she helped build the foundation from which I’ve built myself and my business. As a mother, I continue to create for my family as my own mother did, because it’s gratifying to create something special for the people I love.
Beyond this, I create for my clients. I make beautiful, functional spaces to support the life they lead alongside their families. It takes passion, commitment, and a hard-working mentality. Luckily, I have all of these.
I have my mother to thank for that.
