I met Rebekah a few months ago when she posted in a Facebook group we both belong to. In the post she said that she was thinking of starting a blog to get her new collection out there, but was anxious about going public. I volunteered to interview her here on the blog, in the hopes that it would help her ease into the blogging world.

Little did I know how wonderful it would be working with her, and how much her story and creative process would inspire me. I hope you enjoy this interview. I think you will find a lot in Rebekah's words that resonate with you.

Please tell us a little bit about your background as an artist and how you got into surface pattern design.

In 2011 I moved from my home in Newcastle, Australia to the Blue Mountains, which is a very relaxed, artsy community full of vibrant, colorful people. I fell in with a group of patchworkers, learning to sew and quilt, and that’s when my love affair with patterns and fabric began.

It wasn’t until I read an interview with Rachael Taylor in Mollie Makes magazine that I realized surface pattern design actually existed. It blew me away to realize that actual people, just like me, were designing the beautiful fabrics I was fawning over! I searched online to see if there were any courses I could take, and came across the International School of Colour and Design (ISCD).

I remember attending an info session at the school and standing there crying as I realized this is where I wanted to be, and this is what I wanted to do. The next day I enrolled. During my 18 months at ISCD I learned a lot about surface pattern design and, more importantly, started to explore and discover myself as an artist. This is a process I’m still working through and hope will never end!

I finished school in 2013 and over the years found myself straying from design as different things happened in my life. However, something continued drawn me back to pattern design and a few months ago I made the decision that I want to be a designer. I made the commitment to pursue my passion with passion!

You split your time between Australia and Nepal. How have these two cultures impacted your work and the way you approach your craft?

I moved to Nepal in 2015, a month after the country suffered a massive earthquake. I had fallen in love with my trekking guide three months earlier, so when I moved to Nepal I didn’t really have any intention of returning to Australia. All I had with me was a backpack, my laptop and a small sketchbook. I hadn’t designed patterns in almost a year, and the first design I created after that big break was while staying in a village in the remote Everest region of Nepal. I created a really simple pattern, not something I’d put in my portfolio, but something that got me designing again.

Once my husband and I set up our own little room in Kathmandu I was able to buy a few basic art supplies at a local art store. I was excited to have a few more resources at my disposal, although not nearly as many as I'd had back in Australia. We didn’t have great wifi or reliable electricity, and I didn’t have a printer or a scanner. But with a little determination, and some creative thinking (and a whole heap of patience) I joined the Textile Design Lab and created my very first collection.

This experience made me realize that I don’t need a lot to practice my craft. And these days, even though I spend most of my time in Australia, I still don't use a lot of tools to create my designs. My first collection, which I’ve just shared with the world, was created entirely using digital media. It helps to have access to wifi (and these days the wifi in our flat in Kathmandu is much better). When we don’t have wifi I just focus on doing something that doesn’t require me to be online. In all, I think my experiences of living in Nepal has helped me to be more flexible and adaptive in the way I work.

And change! You've had a lot of it in your life the last few years. Can you tell us what this has been like for you and how you've been able to embrace it?

There have definitely been a lot of big changes in my life in the last two and a half years! I don’t think I’ve ever really stopped to think about it too much, because the nature of life is that you just have to keep going. You can never go back and change things, so you really just have to accept them and move forward. The hardest thing about the last couple of years has been dealing with the feeling that our life is on hold. We are currently in the process of applying for my husband’s marriage visa so that he can come to Australia and live with us. Hopefully, by the time you read this, it will have been approved and we’ll be in Australia. We’re at the tail end of the whole process, and now awaiting a decision. So fingers crossed!

But I think I got tired of thinking to myself, “When X happens, we can do Y” or “When Y happens, everything will be different and it will be better”. That’s not the kind of thinking or way of living life that I want to model to our son. And I know from experience that there is no such thing as “the right time” for anything. Life kind of just happens, regardless of whether or not you’re ready for it! So as far as trying to establish a creative career for myself, I decided that I couldn’t sit around and wait for the right time, or for the right set of circumstances. If it’s what I want to do, I really just have to do it. I don’t have a dedicated studio space and I don’t get as many hours of uninterrupted time to devote to creating as I would like, so I try to make do with what I have.

The biggest thing I’ve learned is that we have less control over things than we think we do, so it pays to be flexible. It’s been a hard lesson to learn, because I do like to be in control, and it’s a lesson I’m continually relearning. So I take control of the things I can, allow a certain amount of flexibility for other things, and leave everything else up to the Universe to work out for me. So when things don’t go as planned (like I don’t get anything on my to-do list done for the day) I try to just roll with it and make a new plan for tomorrow!

You finished your first pattern collection in only three months. Any advice for others who are working on collections but feeling overwhelmed by the process?

I’m not sure what advice I can offer, but I can tell you three things I did to get started, to clear the way so I could create my collection.

I made a firm decision that I wanted to pursue a creative career, and then announced it to those closest to me. Namely, my mum and my husband.
I sat down with my husband and told him exactly what help I needed from him in order to pursue my goals. Specifically, I asked him to take care of our son for a couple of hours once or twice a day, so I could focus on my work.
I started believing that I have the right to pursue a creative career. This helped me quiet those inner voices of self-doubt, fear and guilt that tried to stop me from beginning this journey. I think guilt is harder for me now that I’m a mother. Sometimes my son will stand at the door hitting it and crying, which at first made me feel really guilty. But I know his dad is there and capable of caring for him, so I try to remember that I have a right to create a career for myself. What I am doing is important for both my family and me.

From there I started setting goals. I tried to approach each day with focus and be realistic about what I could achieve in the time that was available to me. Each day when I sat down, I would only engage in activities that I knew were going to help me achieve my goal of completing my collection. I would focus on only one thing at a time, and not allow myself to get distracted by Facebook or Instagram. And even if I didn’t know what my next steps would be, completing something each day would generally give me a direction for the next thing to focus on. I never intended to complete a collection and share it online in only three months, but that was what I ended up doing. And now I have my sights set on completing two more collections before the years end!

We've talked a bit about this already, but are there any other challenges you've faced so far as a designer?

Over the years, because I don't have a strong artistic background, I’ve allowed myself to be crippled with fear and self-doubt. I've listened to that little voice that tries to tell me I have no right trying to do this, that I’m a fraud and that my work isn’t worth very much. It can be a pretty loud voice!

However a few years ago I started reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, “Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear”, and following her first season of podcasts. I think that has really helped me to work through the creative fear I feel sometimes, and to just get on with creating. I’ve learned that creativity is such an important part of nourishing my soul, and it not only benefits me, but also my family.

What advice can you give others who interested in surface pattern design? What have you learned so far?

Find a community! Designing can be a bit of a lonely pursuit sometimes, especially if you’re not working as part of a team in an art department or collaborating with another designer. I like working on my own and need a bit of a quite space by myself to create. I really don’t like having people looking over my shoulder watching me! But it also means that I can get stuck in my own head, obsessing over my work.

Having a community of other artists or designers that you can touch base with really helps. I recently joined The Roost Tribe, and not only has it been an invaluable resource to helping me on my journey to building a design career, it has provided me with a supportive community. I can bounce ideas off of members, get clarification on things that are stumping me, and to get feedback and encouragement on my work.

Fear, Change and Getting it Done with Rebekah Strunz