MANUELA MüLLER

I do not consider myself as an artist.

I just do. I create.

I see, and then I feel, and then I do. And what I do is what I am. As far as I can tell. It defines me, somehow.

Most of the times, I listen. Music is one big inspiring part of my life. The sound. Some lyrics. Stuck in my head. I feel the need to make visible what it makes me feel.

Besides this, I live. I like to suffer. If I do, I am creative. My head is just spinning and there is this big chaos of sentences and pictures in my mind, wanting to come out.

Sometimes I think, I'm not an artist, so I should stop doing what I do. Sometimes I think I'm just a worker, putting things together.

But when people tell me, I'd have a nice "hobby", I get angry and upset. That's when I realise, that I AM an artist and that what I do IS ART and not just some decoration stuff.

So I feel the drive and I use all energy and I work for days not realising the hours passing by, not hearing the phone ring, not feeling any need to do anything else than what I'm doing. Creating.

I draw. I paint. I sew. I take pictures. I keep on working with what I've done.

I'm never done. I'm never satisfied. I'm rarely happy with what I do, because I always feel like I could have done better, like I could do better.

All these things in my mind... Sometimes I think they are the reason for some headaches I'm suffering from. Sometimes I wish I was of very low intelligence so my head would probably not work all the time.

There is this other ache in my chest. It's a kind of pressure and it's burning, so I understand people talking about the fire inside. This fire must be this thing called 'passion'.  Passion is what I refer my work to. It's what keeps me going, it's what won't let me sleep. It's what gets me up late at night, makes me take a piece of paper and sketch and write.

I just try to work with my own chaos. To do what I'm doing. To create.

Manuela Müller, Germany