Who are the biggest influences in your life?
Who Are the Biggest Influences in My Life?
If influence were a garden, mine would be overgrown and gloriously untamed, with a few orderly hedges to hint at structure.
My early years were shaped by my parents, hardworking artisans who taught me the value of busy hands and a busy mind. They instilled a respect for craft, for taking raw materials and molding them into something useful or beautiful—or both. This ethos extended to the French Catholic schools I attended, where idle hands were seen as the devil’s workshop, and the nuns seemed determined to keep us perpetually occupied.
But while the Church planted seeds, they didn’t take root in me. Waywardness found me early, and I wandered off the straight and narrow, led more by curiosity than rebellion.
What did shape me, though, were the worlds I found in books. Authors like Aldous Huxley, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and George Orwell were my guides, showing me the profound, the absurd, and the eerily prophetic. These were the voices that whispered, “Question everything.”
As I grew, my tastes evolved. Comedians like George Carlin taught me that humor is a scalpel, sharp enough to dissect the hypocrisies of life. Margaret Atwood’s words confirmed that storytelling could be both a weapon and a balm. Filmmakers like Fellini, Bertolucci, and David Lynch introduced me to the surreal and the shadowy, where the lines between dreams and reality blur. Through them, I realized that life doesn’t always make sense—and perhaps it’s not supposed to.
But influence isn’t just about lofty ideals or creative genius. It’s also about skills—the things that make us who we are in the most tangible way.
From my parents, I inherited not only a love of making but also the confidence to tackle just about anything. I’m a sculptress, but I can also knit, crochet, sew, cook, and wield power tools with ease. If there’s a problem that requires hands-on fixing, I’ll roll up my sleeves without hesitation.
Working in film and television for decades has added another layer. It’s taught me patience, teamwork, and the art of controlled chaos. Every project, whether a sculpture or a scene, is a balancing act between vision and compromise.
I’ve come to believe that influence is less about the people or things that mold us and more about how we allow ourselves to be shaped. Like clay on a potter’s wheel, we’re constantly spinning, nudged this way and that by experiences, books, art, and the people we encounter.
Words Have Power 