It all started with 4 walls.
The air quality was unbreathable from the concrete dust and insulation particles floating in the air... But it was mine. After dreaming of a space like this my entire childhood (tinkering in Dad's shed and using excessive rolls of sticky tape to make swords and guns) it was finally at my fingertips. Except, I had to build it into existence.
So that's what I did... First came the walls then came the paint and the floors and the workbench, the tool wall and the shelves. I have no real prior experience building interior spaces, but that seems to be a recurring theme in my life - I've never had the right to do anything I have done. But I do it anyways.
A year into having 'The Curiosity Sanctuary' (had to shorten the original name, didn't roll off the tongue too well) I enrolled into a jewellery making elective at University and it struck me like lightning. It's hard to describe how it all clicked but I remember discussing with my University tutor the possibility of crafting shiny objects at home. I showed her a photo of The Sanctuary and I walked out of that class with a list of basic tools to get me started.
4 months later I was preparing for my first market stall.
As I said before I've never had the license to do anything I've done and I truely believe you don't need someone else to tell you how qualified you are for a certain skill. I taught myself how to build a workshop, I taught myself videography, I taught myself how to make jewellery and the details of running a business, (including building a website that your currently on). And I won't deny that I got dealt a life changing hand of cards - i.e. being given a space that I don't pay rent on. But that space could have easily been a gym, or a storage space collecting dust if I didn't have the vision to create something that didn't exist.
The fact of the matter is that I took the action to explore my curiosities and nothing I have created or achieved was left to luck. I credit it to pursuing my curiosity with intention, having the courage to quit the things that don't serve me and having the willingness to commit.
I hope my products and craft is a reflection of that.