„I wrote the name Jack Sparrow. 3246 times. Mostly very small, smaller than a needle. Working like that, I can create shadows and I can create the lighter parts of an image. When I start, I start with the eyes, these are the most important part of a portrait. If the eyes are not good it will not look like the portrayed person. I start to write and make the eyes like I think it has to be. Than I put the paper away and I take a cup of coffee or I do something else. 

After a while I am looking at his eyes again. If they are good its okay. Than I can go on with the process. And for me personal if the eyes are good the rest is peanuts. Even if I have to write it ten thousand times its okay. Hair, hat, all the other details are no problem for me at all. The eyes are the most important thing in the proces.“

Mirjam wrote about 400 times the name Jack Sparrow to create his eyes.

Making a portrait is the cherry on the cake, she said.

But to be able to do this creative special work, it was a long way of learning, as she told me in a letter:

 „After I had broken free from the strict religious family I grew up in, I had a constant 'need' to make and create things. with a grandmother who taught me to knit and a aunty in the big city who made with yarn, needles and textile the most awesome things i had ever seen, the little seed been planted. my aunty teached me, without words, that i could create with my own hands. even if you are left-handed! I tried to satisfy my urge to create. after knitting and crocheting, I discovered weaving, embroidery, and wanted to know everything about bobbin lace and tatting. my hunger was never over and I discovered sculpting, clay and paint. And THERE it was... That was what I was looking for. In the years that followed, I created my own way of working and my own style.“

For her work, she needs a lot of patience and concentration. If she is not 100 % in the meditation of her repeating the same word, things go wrong, as she told me. Like it happened, when she made her first giraffe, 2 meters high, by writing thousands of times the word 'giraffe'. Writing the words, she has something like a mantra in her head, repeading 'giraffe one – giraffe two – giraffe three'. But then she listened to her spanish lesson and her spanish teacher was always saying 'gracias, gracias'. And what happened?

„The teacher always said 'gracias, gracias', while I wrote 'giraffe, giraffe'. I started to write gracias gracias. Because it was my own giraffe, a workout for myself, it was no problem. It was a good lesson for me: don't have the radio on if you are working.“

The 'mantra' in her head seems to be very important to realize a picture. It gives her the patience to repeat a word lots of times. Sometimes, Mirjam gets an order that suddenly make things more complicated and she needs to find a solution for, in the following case, another giraffe:

Working is not always that easy. The year 2020 told us how fragil everything can be and that we all can suddenly be pushed out of our comfortable situation. The Canary Islands are part of Spain. So Mirjam is living in a country, where they had worldwide one of the most severe restrictions at the beginning of Corona Crisis. So how did it change her daily work?

„In the beginning it looked like very temporal, only for maybe a month. This was because nobody knew what happens. So you were in the flow or... when [selling on] the market will start again... or when the shop will be open again.... I thought: I have a few weeks time to make stock....

Than, during the time, during the weeks when everybody sees that it will take longer than a few I get problems with my inspiration. You cannot go out. It looks like everything stops. It feels like a big cloud around you and you don't know where to go and where to stop. It feels very complicated here on the little island far away from the big world where everything happens. In the big world it must have been worse than here. But - I felt very lonely sometimes and I couldn't sleep so well. So when I was awake at night I started working. During the night when everything feels normal, without radio and no sun without people walking by I could work very concentrated and made a lot of work what is now in my shop and still waiting for clients.

But when at 8 o'clock the sun came up the cloud with all this negative things came back again. During the night I could work...“

In the middle of the summer, during the Corona Crisis, Mirjam was brave to open a shop.

Mirjam hopes to contact some galleries in Tenerife to open doors for a bigger market. Tenerife is the neighbour-island of La Gomera with more inhabitants. And if they are allowed to come, there are also much more tourists.

If Mirjam would have a free wish for her work, she wishes that an influential gallerist would pass to her shop and become enthusiastic about her work. While waiting for this visit, she sells on internet. I asked her what is possible to order.

„Ordering a personalized calligram takes some more time. But I love to hear your idea about it. 3 weeks ago a person ordered the buddistic sign ohm. I made it by writing hundreds of times the name of his girlfriend.

So for christmas, if somebody is very meditative this would be a possibility.

Or if your parents are 50 years together I can make two hearts by writing their names and date of marriage.

If somebody likes to order something but don't know what exactly, I first ask if he has a hobby. We can find out something around. Not long ago I did two boxing gloves with the name of an older person who boxed when he was young.

Although your idea is not completely clear yet, almost everything can be made as Calligram.“

And finally: Mirjams wish for 2021?

„Health. That's the basic for everybody. It makes the world a little bit normal again. So people are not that much irritated and stressed.

How great it would be if at new year's eve the clock strikes, we close our eyes, and next moment we open them the whole Corona crisis is disappeared“

Good luck Mirjam, and take care!

contact, share and follow Mirjam:

https://www.mirjampolman.com