Welcome back, Italy and Art

Since my very first blog post on my brand-new website happened just two months after starting a new life in Italy, this title seemed very appropriate!

First Things First

If you are here reading these words, let me just say how grateful and happy I am that you are here. It took me a very long time to get to this point, and now I’m finally in a place where I can honour my purpose and passion. I’ve wanted to be an artist since I was a kid (cliché, I know, but still true, and I know many can relate), and I've wanted to start a blog since I discovered blogs. Now, I can finally let creativity and ideas materialise and become something of value for you. In this space, I will be sharing my art and business journey, learnings, findings, and also some life and travel experiences since they are my main sources of inspiration! Whatever I write about, I will make sure each of your visits is worthwhile!

From London to Puglia

Something really exciting happened in my life recently: after over 10 years in London, three of which I spent with my wonderful husband, I moved back to Italy. This time, instead of Milan, I went further south to the sunny, windy, and tranquil countryside of Salento, Puglia. Why Salento? Simple: Lorenzo, my husband, is from here! He already had a house in the countryside, and after enjoying the UK for a while, we decided it was time to switch to a slower pace of life. We wanted more space and time to focus on our personal projects and build the life we want to live.

So, Now What?

Now I can finally get started! It took me a long time to get here. To be transparent, most of my life was spent struggling with myself and my identity: discovering who I am, creating who I want to be, building self-esteem and confidence, often feeling like I was taking one step forward and two steps back, not knowing how to love myself, not knowing what I wanted to do (I had a very different career in my 20s), and not having enough faith in myself to believe that I could really make it as an illustrator. Fast forward to now, I have come to realise that life is too short not to believe in myself. My biggest fears used to be failure and external judgment, but now it is reaching the end of my life and having regrets for not living it on my own terms. Even if I fail, I know that I’d spend my time doing the things I love the most!