THE CROSSROADS
A Personal Story of Unpredictability
EARLY YEARS
On the costal half-isle of Split in Yugoslavia, a few years prior to its collapse, I was born to a father of practical skill and a free-bird mother. Living with the grandparents my early boyhood memories are those of my grandfather breathing life into newly dreamt up creations. Among these, one in particular: the windmill he built to harness electricity remains for me a permanent reminder of how simple materials worked by a skillful hand can combine into objects of great value and functional beauty.
The first major crossroad of my life came at the age of 12 when I was torn away from that childhood and set half a globe away in a foreign land to face the challanges of onsetting adolescence. Unrooted and having been assigned the role of “an outsider” these teenage years were marked by solitude and comfort sought in the anonymity of the digital world, finally culminating in a M.Sc. in Control Engineering and the promise of a long office career built on dreams unlived.
NEAR-RECENT YEARS
After a five year search for meaning in an office environment, at the age of 29 I was finally able to summon the courage to abandon that path of certainty and comfort to dream again and seek out a peace of mind. To search for freedom of a dreaming man in command of his own will. To unify the outer and the inner and to act naturally, intuitively.
Penniless and thus vulnerable yet determined to keep the dream alive I was forced to relocate workshops 7 times in the first two years. Each and every time with considerable effort preparing the space before having to move on. Finally I settled in a cabin in the countryside and was able to afford a permanent studio. I had ended up on the path of a self-taught craftsman, spending countless hours sifting through books and online resources, distilling the information recorded by other craftsmen and building the skill-set necessary to create objects worthwhile.
The cards were thus dealt anew and looking back life seems a chain of chance events and unforseen choices leading towards unpredictable places regardless of our contrivances. Better then, it seems, to leave our fears at the door and let circumstance sweep us up and over the hills towards pastures yet unknown and for us only destined. Lest we are willing to let this single chance at life slip through the inadequate grip of our clenching fingers.
WE LIVE TWO LIVES. THE SECOND ONE BEGINS ONCE WE REALIZE WE ONLY HAVE ONE
