Something From Nothing: My Handmade History

I am one of those annoyingly happy, relentlessly cheerful and optimistic people (most of the time). I always know everyone, love to make friends and seem to be completely confident in any situation. I adore my work and believe in myself and the power of my passion. I have done some amazing things in my 28 years that I am so proud of.

When I tell people I am really quite shy they laugh in my face, no one ever believes me! But that isn’t the whole truth of who I am. I didn’t get here overnight and it has not been an easy journey. I fought long and hard to love myself and my story. While I am open to talking about my crazy life with anyone who wants to have a heart to heart conversation sharing my raw heart on the internet is a whole different thing. But our #omhg chat last week + Isa’s What’s Your Story campaign were enough to push me over the edge. So I want to share the reason why I am so committed to living a successful creative life and helping others to the same.

I think this story is a part of everything I do (I even share it in my bio) but it is scary to invite you into it so openly-please be nice to me! I’ve walked, stumbled and climbed my way up the mountain to be here now. But my personal journey to a handmade life isn’t fully my own. I’ve written here about how my mother influenced my love of community. Today I want to tell how her mother, Ana Brom (above), influenced my passion for handmade and drive to help women and mothers live their creative dreams.

My nana was a wild woman who had 5 children with 3 different husbands. A first generation New York Jew, she grew up in the Bronx, was a nude model in Greenwich Village in the 40′s, a fashion designer for Hollywood stars in the 50′s and one of the first white women to legally marry a black man in the 60′s. She marched in anti-war protests and was involved in the civil rights movement. I grew up on stories of my nana designing dresses for stars like Katherine Hepburn and Shirley Temple, throwing lavish Hollywood parties and Marlon Brando bringing my mom candy cigars. Highly irreverent and political I have strong memories of her talking politics in her Brooklyn accent with her chain-smokers rasp, tossing in Yiddish words and cursing like a sailor.

In the 60′s my nana moved to Ibiza, Spain with her two daughters to escape the politics of the Vietnam War. She was brave and crazy then, so poor her girls had to hunt for wild spinach on the beaches and gather driftwood for the fireplace. She built up a business by buying a piece of fabric, sewing it into a dress by hand while her girls played on the beach. Then she sold the one dress on consignment and took the money to buy enough fabric to sew two dresses and so on until she could afford a sewing machine and eventually opened a boutique.

In Ibiza she met her final husband, a man 20 years younger with his own demons. She had her last child then in her early forties-which was another scandal! Sadly, that was not the whole truth of her story either, she wasn’t all fire and determination. Years of being in abusive relationships, hard living, plus her own mental health issues had left her broken by the time I was born. Still an incredible artist she was seriously agoraphobic and increasingly unable to leave the house. She spent her days creating but was unable to function enough to sell her work and make her own money. She was dependent on my abusive step-grandfather until she died on the first day of the new millennium. My aunt had killed herself when I was 12 and the loss of her oldest daughter started a descent into madness and she lost her will to live. She just didn’t have the strength to face a new century.

Despite hard times and loss, my nana gave me a love of fibre, fashion, art, politics, off-beat humor, Viktor Frankl and the underdog. I got my obsession for handmade in her studio, creating with bits & pieces of her dyed silk, patterned fabric and wool. She would work every day on her art from 9am-4pm and I remember being fascinated by watching her create something out of nothing. Taking bolts of white crepe de chine and dying it into vibrant patterns then piecing it together into clothing and tapestries like the one above.

After she died it took 10 years to get her art returned to my mother and I, but my home is now filled with pieces she created with her hands. I feel like the best parts of her are close to us and helping to shape my own daughters creativity. As I grew older and became a mother to my own girls I knew that my focus needed to be on them seeing me live my dreams. To break the cycle of women who were not able to fully realize their own.

I have a strong compassion for mothers who are also artists trying to balance the two sides of the equation. My nana was an amazing artist but a terrible mother, my own mother is a talented artist who put creativity aside to parent me the best that she could. I will be both. In me I hope the cycle will be complete and my children will grow up seeing my success as an artist while still being present as a parent. At least I’m doing my best.

{this embroidered tapestry is a focal point of my living room-to me it represents the three generations of women in my family and the beauty of our story} When create and transform something into nothing my nana is with me. She is still a part of the story I am writing. I write it for her, for myself, for you and for all our daughters. I hope to piece together happy endings, broken bits and all, into something beautiful.

“We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed. For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one’s predicament into a human achievement.” ~ Dr. Viktor Frankl

Telling our stories is hard and the pieces of our hearts the most difficult to share. But like Isa does, I believe our stories can connect us in powerful ways. I would love to know why you are passionate about what you do, what story are you writing that needs to be shared, if you are transforming pain into something beautiful. I hope you will join in the What’s Your Story campaign and share it with us! Leave a link to your story below or comment with your own story if you aren’t quite ready to share it with the whole world.

Jessika Hepburn is an artist, writer, change maker, entrepreneur, mama to two and editor of Oh My! Handmade Goodness, co-creator of Worthsy and recently began offering marketing, design and small business support, find out more by visiting www.jessikahepburn.com