Cat is an artist and Tellington TTouch practitioner for companion animals, living in Berlin. I met her during a Tellington training she assisted and had the chance to spend one week in her beautiful appartment in Berlin Kreuzberg while looking after her two dogs Beuysie and Noukie - between pieces of artwork and LPs from all over the world.
HAPPINESS
Happy people make me happy. People who have the ability to show their emotions and to share them. Animals make me happy! Happiness is something inside. So... if happiness is inside of myself first, I therefore connect with other happy people. It resonates, ripples and multiplies. I also feel happiness when... very simply, my chosen family is well, the people and animals that I love. That is not very philosophical, life can be sometimes very simple, much more simple than we might think. I think, our world right now is not a very happy place, looking at the global enviromental situation, political problems and wars. So, I find it very important to create my own space of happiness with the things and the people I surround myself, in order to give back a positive input into the world.
HOME
What makes me feel at home... I lived in several countries and visited a lot of places and I think I started to feel at home the moment when I had found a core group of friends and/or animals. A little bit of a safety helps too... then I feel at home – I can very quickly feel at home, even if I go travelling and I am somewhere only for a short time. I think my heart is nomadic... my ancestors have been shepherds.
LIFE
So... important incidents during one's life... Sometimes you don't notice in that very moment..In my case, I think never really knew it the moment, but followed my intuition. Only retrospectively it became clear and then it became like a thread. It started in my childhood – I grew up in a very small village, surrounded by sheep, horses and all sorts of companion and wild animals. I had a best friend, who was a welsh pony mare. My family have been Heilpraktiker (Naturopaths) since generations. The connection to nature and to alternative healing methods and herbalism were part of my consciousness since I can remember... That is definitely something, which I now feel is a really important basis of who I am now; my childhood DNA.
Then...I am potentially an anarchist... being a young adult, I have always looked for the wild and unusual things in life – not taking things how they are and asking questions. I would never really accept things, if they felt wrong. I decided that I'll become an artist. I was always painting and drawing as a child anyway... So, I went out into the world... I studied fine arts and philosophy at university, met really amazing people, travelled around the world and was based in London. Whilst making videos and performative installations, I met Leah Gordon, who has been inspiring me to travel to Haiti. Currently, one of my artistic manifestations is to help organizing the „Ghetto Biennale“ which is an alternative Art Biennale in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. We are a curatorial team of several international and haitian artists, focussing on projects based on social, spiritual and enviromental practice. Interactive ideas are welcomed rather than classical, isolated art making ideas.
Another very important influence on my path of life was one of my dogs, Beuysie, who I named after Joseph Beuys. This dog is little and cute but very challenging and I couldn't imagine then that we would be able get to where we are now. Beuysie guided me to learning the Tellington TTouch method and this method quickly became another, most important part of my life. Working with TTouch is where I feel I can make use of the creativity of being an artist and at the same time connect with animals, humans and nature on a very deep level and to bring it all together. I can help animals and people heal. That's why I decided to become a practitioner. I do love working and teaching in that field of practice, to see transformations and changes in the animals and the people and to help them see things with new eyes. Yes, so... these three events have been quite influential in my life.
Bea's question: What is your greatest passion and how have you found it?
I think I can be very passionate about music, all sorts of music, especially music that is played life. I go to a lot of gigs. Music is something I don't make myself anymore, but which I so much enjoy listening to. It gives me real joy to dance to music too. I love going to Haiti and dancing in the streets, not only during the Carnival. Haitian people seem to always dance while they are moving. Music and dancing are my greatest passions, they make me very happy and I can feel that I can let go of everything. Forget everything.
I could say, okay, animals are my passion, or artworks, or seeing good films, but those are too much connected to my everyday life and my own work already, they are in a way great passions too... But music has this passion 'PLUS' factor, it's music and rhythms, that I love to move and dance to. And I love to dance wildly.
Cat's question: Have you ever experienced something like a failure, which then turned out to be a blessing in disguise?