I was enthusiastic about painting from an early age. My first works were heavily criticised because my visual language was idiosyncratic. Today I realise that I was simply not understood. While my mother stood behind me and collected all my work, my father didn't think it was art, but doodles. A lot of time has passed since then. The first attempts are long gone. But to this day, the stories bubble out of me like an explosion. Then I quickly run out of colours and canvas.

I also used to resort to the spoken word in such cases. My father claimed that I babbled a lot to myself. My mother recognised a pronounced tendency towards Dadaism. Although my teachers attested that I had a lot of imagination, they thought there was no room for it in my spelling or punctuation. (I was particularly creative in this area.) That's why I was at war with English at school. I didn't fare much better in art, because it was part of the assignment to bring your work material.

I did much better in subjects like mathematics or sciences. Spelling mistakes didn't count here. You didn't need more than a pen in class tests and you could borrow one if necessary.

That's why I later studied business administration and physics. That sounds more boring than it is. I find it fascinating why the sky is blue. I can end any party late at night with this knowledge.