When you delude yourself…

From an early age we put labels on ourselves for which we have no doubt.
“I’m an evening guy,” “I’m too bad with numbers,” “Who’s going to paint?”  I don’t even know how to hold the brush “and so on.

Sometimes these labels are meaningless, small and painless but very often drastically and completely determine the image we have of ourselves.

This is what happened to me also. For many (many!) years I believed that I had nothing artistic in me. Even with the colors of my clothes I made the safest choices. White with black, white with blue, red with white and so on. Only when I bought jewelry did I release my spirit and imagination. These, at least, have always had a peculiarity.

As for making something from scratch, no way!

I have laughed a lot with myself – from within me of course – with the arguments I used to tell my mother to persuade her to sew my button since I was convinced that I couldn’t do that either.

I was good at organization, in order, in numbers. That’s why I was an office worker, an administrative secretary and generally a woman of files, correspondence and procedures.

I kept this image of myself until I had to move to a Greek island for various reasons.
So then I wondered what I was going to do and asked myself the following question: What do you like Erasmia?

Such a simple question. Four words that can change your whole life.

A voice as if from beyond, replied:
• Communicating with the world,
• jewelry (to buy them, of course, not to make them)
• and travels.

That was one of the few times that this answer came clearly with vigor and clarity.
I think this is due to the fact that I asked the question in silence.

You will be wandering what do i mean by “in silence”?

Let me explain.

Luckily from a young age I had a habit. I went for a walk or for coffee alone. I remember I preferred to do my homework outside of home. I would take my schoolbag with my books and go to a nearby grove, lay down on the grass or on the bench and read. I was never bothered by the noise and I managed to concentrate easily. So during these walks I usually thought about what bothered me and most of the times I found a possible solution to my problem.

I did not appreciate enough this process at that time. That’s how I felt, that’s what I did. Now I can recognize that although instinctively, I acted wisely for two reasons.

First, I allowed myself to be alone without company and distractions, and second, I did not question the possible solutions I was considering. On the contrary, I carried them out exactly as I had thought. In other words I trusted my instinct.

So this voice gave me the answer to my question one Wednesday afternoon when I went for a walk in Plaka after work. At that time, my office was in the columns of Olympian Zeus and many evenings I would return to Anafiotika, admiring the houses and neighborhoods of another era.

I was going through the penultimate week at work since the following weekend it was arranged to move to Crete.

Next Thursday morning inside the train going to work, as I was watching the houses rapidly pass me by, I thought: “Well, now that I’ve found what I like, how do I combine them?  What work I’m going to do?”

Then i remembered that two weeks ago on a similar walk in the same area, a friend from work and I on our way to have a coffee visited a jewelry lab because he wanted a piece of jewelry of his to be repaired.

That’s it! Inspiration! I will become a commercial representative of jewelry workshops! The idea rocks! It was about people, it was about jewelry and I had to travel to promote it!

It was a progress! I had thought of a possible future job that I really liked! But again, I had no one to help me, no idea what I was going to do with that inspiration!

I got to work and the day went on with the familiar flow, with the familiar routine. Orders, phone calls, invoices, shipments.

That afternoon, as going down the stairs to exit the building there was my friend!

– I looked for you in the sky, I found you on earth! (Greek saying)
– What happened? He replied.

After I unfolded my reasoning to him, spontaneously and without planning it, I asked him to go to the laboratory with me again to ask for a job! So boldly! Now that I think about it, we’re talking about real audacity. I couldn’t even distinguish the jewelry stones at that time.

“I’m just going there,” he replied

Do you remember the jewelry I left to be repaired? Today I was notified that it is ready and I’m going to get it!

This is the universe conspiring, I thought!

The rest is the end of the first part of the story. The silversmith recommended me to a friend of his who was looking for a dealer and  in a few days I was travelling for Crete with a suitcase full of jewelry samples of the first workshop I worked for.

So, even before I moved, a new era had already begun for me, a new chapter that would change the course of history forever.

In the first years I learned about the art of jewelry, I knew and socialized with artists, merchants, gallery owners, I traveled constantly and I built my own clientele.

And it all started with one simple question:

The story does not end here. I will explain how I got involved with jewellery art as a creator, but I’m leaving it for the next time.

What I want you to keep for now is:

There are no greater obstacles than the one  we put ourselves in front of!

Change how you see yourself and you will just be exactly as you saw you…!

Erasmia