THE CREATIVE COMPENDIUM OF
TAMMIE GERCKEN
Welcome to my portfolio!
This represents everything going on in my life and in my head...everything I've accomplished and hope to accomplish...
feeling adventurous? come inside....
A Brief History of Misdirection:
"So what do you do?" sounds like an innocent conversation opener, but I have always chafed under its sub-conscious assumptions and pre-conceived notions about what's possible in the world of work, and of what people are capable. So also with the pre-cursor to that question, "What do you want to do?".
It's taken me a long time to admit that deep down, I've always known the answer to that: "I want to live a totally creative life." Artist, Writer, Musician - I wanted to be all of them, at the same time. There was a time when I believed I could.
But as I progressed through high school and college, my parents and others started pressuring me to focus all my efforts on securing the most well paying job I could find so I could pay bills and buy things. It became quite apparent that they didn't consider any creative discipline able to provide such an opportunity. I was told that only super talented "special" people could succeed in such an endeavor, leaving me to infer that I was not one of them. Only recently have I had the courage to look at the devastating scars this attitude left on my self esteem.
But as a friend recently reminded me, it doesn't matter how many times you get knocked down, only how many times you get back up. This online portfolio represents me, getting back up. The process actually began in December 2007, when I stepped out of the fog of 12 years of brain numbing book-keeping work. I had come to believe, through my relationship with God, that if He made me to be a creative person, then He must have a plan for that gift, so it was my responsibility to Him to walk that out in my life to the best of my ability. So my plan is to gather all the bits and pieces of my life here in one place to see if perhaps they might create a bigger picture that will point me in the direction of meaningful, fulfilling work that I may do for the rest of my life.
It's taken me a long time to admit that deep down, I've always known the answer to that: "I want to live a totally creative life." Artist, Writer, Musician - I wanted to be all of them, at the same time. There was a time when I believed I could.
But as I progressed through high school and college, my parents and others started pressuring me to focus all my efforts on securing the most well paying job I could find so I could pay bills and buy things. It became quite apparent that they didn't consider any creative discipline able to provide such an opportunity. I was told that only super talented "special" people could succeed in such an endeavor, leaving me to infer that I was not one of them. Only recently have I had the courage to look at the devastating scars this attitude left on my self esteem.
But as a friend recently reminded me, it doesn't matter how many times you get knocked down, only how many times you get back up. This online portfolio represents me, getting back up. The process actually began in December 2007, when I stepped out of the fog of 12 years of brain numbing book-keeping work. I had come to believe, through my relationship with God, that if He made me to be a creative person, then He must have a plan for that gift, so it was my responsibility to Him to walk that out in my life to the best of my ability. So my plan is to gather all the bits and pieces of my life here in one place to see if perhaps they might create a bigger picture that will point me in the direction of meaningful, fulfilling work that I may do for the rest of my life.
Why The Dreaming Swan?
Around 1996, I read a book called Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, in which she uses archetypes from fairy tales and folk stories to illustrate issues that women face in the modern world. In one chapter, she re-told the "Ugly Duckling" story from the point of view of the young swan, emphasizing how stressed out and hurt it felt every time someone rejected, ridiculed, and ultimately drove it away, time after time. Based on my experiences, I deeply identified with this character. I eventually realized that I had gotten to the point where I was rejecting myself - my dreams, talents, and personality - in order to try and fit somewhere in this world. About a decade and a half of trying this only brought me much misery and isolation, so now I have come to believe that God does indeed have a place for this dreaming swan, and I trust that He will lead me there in His perfect timing.