I gave myself a spontaneous birthday gift of visiting the Sistine Chapel in 2007. I was lucky and walked through the Vatican Museum, on a private tour, late evening of June the eighth. Visiting the Vatican had been a dream of mine since childhood. When I was very young, around the time of my fifth birthday, I made a vow with myself to “make pictures and write”. That night, walking the halls of the Vatican Museum, this vow rekindled in me and reawakened a passion for pictures and words that was a religious experience. My religious experience. Passionately I scribe and scribble, joining pictures with words. The ink, pigments, and colours that merge flow like milk to my inner child. Of course like all creative processes, doubts, perfectionist fixations, the inner critic, rear their ugly heads, wanting to demolish a work in progress. But as long as my heart navigates the flow and shoos the niggling tones of the negative ones, my mind is not lured to follow them through woo. My collage work emerges from a wellspring of feelings and thoughts, from within me. In moments when my inner child is trembling, I bow my head in prayer and the fear passes, disentangled from the snares and shadows, I see light, and my determination to keep my vow, I made so long ago, strengthens. “ Making pictures and adding words” I write and create collage work with my heart, trusting fate to anchor these offerings in safe harbours. May the treasures of vision I bring forth from within myself, release visions and treasures hidden within yourself. Walk through the door, come in, discover and explore. Visit the world of my collage work, enjoy and be inspired. —Daniela
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