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Viktoria

"Joy and work are synonymous in my life. I work with amazing images, people and materials in one of the richest creative atmospheres in the world. What I love most is to bring pleasure to people through what I create, to everyone who sees or buys it, and to all of us involved in the creation.

"The awakening to 'this is how it should be' happened in 1969, when with a degree in art from the University of Wisconsin, I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and it was time to find a 'job.' As a 'job' takes most of one's time in life, I realized it should be something I loved and wanted to continue to learn about. So, for the next 15 years, beginning during what was called 'The Food Revolution' in Berkeley, I was a chef, with a palette for an infinite variety of tastes, textures, colors, and temperatures.

"On my free time I would retreat California's North Coast and eventually built a solar, owner-built home in the forests of Mendocino county. Fantastically beautiful and rewarding, but one cold winter wet firewood drove me to pack and fly to Bali, where I found one of the richest creative atmosphere in the world and a whole new palette of materials opened to me.

"For the past 15 years I have been traveling through South East Asia, living in Bali and designing in stone and wood. Images often grow out of my Buddhist practice and love of Buddhist art, which can directly convey to the beholder feelings of stillness, kindness, and compassion. It opens us to our true nature, thus transmitting without words the heart of the Buddha's teachings. Many forms of great art, simple or complex, reflect something greater in us and the forms of Buddhism are some of the most interesting to me.

"In my experience, we get so busy with our contemporary lives, it is helpful to have images and objects around us that remind us that there is another way to be. And to be gentle with ourselves. I find a number of my Buddhas appear to be relaxing more than usual!

"I also design in fabric, inspired by the forms of Japan and the fabrics and colors of Bali. And I am working on photographs on fabric.

"I am following the dreams of my grandmother who wanted to be able to immerse herself in her art, which was painting on silk. And I am following the dreams of my yachtsman father, I am spending the rest of my life on a tropical island: mine having the most wonderful people to work with and infinite creative possibilities to explore."