Moccasiini

Or Maija, as my family calls me. I’m an artist and writer from Finland. I have been doing art all my life and taught myself most of the techniques I use. You see, being an artist requires a lot of learned skills that come with hard work. It’s NOT a natural born talent. You have to have a passion for it. I have, and you can see the results on this site. Being an artist also requires curiosity about the world; curiosity feeds the imagination, which feeds creativity. I love all things magical and whimsical, and I have a great interest in different cultures and people’s minds. I’m one of those homespun psychologists you may have heard of or whom you may even know.  One who likes to psychoanalyze the heck out of their cats’ social lives and who gives less regard to that of their own. 

I guess you could call me a hermit. I don’t do well in groups, as I’m a quiet and sensitive thinker. Probably for that reason I was bullied in school, for nine years, and disregarded and looked down on ever since. I withdrew into my own imagination that I put into my art. I don’t know if I will ever properly heal, or if I even need to. Great things can be born from depression — beautiful, passionate, poetic things. Things with hope in sight.

That’s how I started writing a story nearly ten years ago. It’s a story I’ve illustrated with 1/6 scale fashion dolls, called The Life and Tales of Elliot Crane. Many of my characters are repainted or otherwise customized by me. They are unique, like real people. One miserable afternoon, it came down to me either jumping under an oncoming train or choosing life with its many miseries. I chose life and put the miseries into my writing; transferred them to my substitute sufferers. As it turns out, I quite like giving my characters hell.

And what is a “moccasiini”? It’s a portmanteau, a blend of multiple words. In this case it’s the blending of the English and Finnish spellings of the Native American shoe, “moccasin”, which in Finnish is “mokkasiini”. The pronunciation goes something like this: mo-cca-see-ne. It’s pronounced with two hard C’s and there’s no emphasis on any syllable, because that’s how we speak in Finnish; with long words that kind of merge together, like singing! One of my late cats was called Mocca, so I didn’t just whip this portmanteau out of my hat. We actually have a similar traditional shoe here in Finland that only went out of fashion in the 1960’s. One of its many names is “lapikas”, or “lapikkaat” in plural. But let’s not get more into that. Moccasins are Native American shoes, and I want to give credit where it’s due.

But “moccasiini” is such a unique word that almost every time you see it online, it has something to do with me. It was about time I registered it as a domain, as I’ve been using it all over the internet for the past 20 or so years. Gosh, that makes me sound old. I’m only 36 in 2021, and I intend to stay young at heart forever.

Oh, and as I am currently unemployed thanks to the world situation, I’m open to job offers of any kind within my skill set. I hope that one day I could have my own online store where I would sell prints, miniature clay food or OOAK (one of a kind) dolls. I have actually acquired enough web designing skills that I could build that online store tomorrow if I wanted to, but I’m not quite ready for that yet. Right now I’m far more interested in seeing where my writing skills can get me. Or I might delve more into web design and make a career out of that — you never know. I built this site in a matter of weeks without any previous knowledge of web design, simply because I wanted to learn. That means I’m a fast learner and I can design and build absolutely anything when I put my mind into it. The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that I could do web designing for a living. I have a Vocational Qualification in Business, Financial Administration, so I already know a thing or two about taxing, bookkeeping, invoices etc. and could start my own company.

So yeah, I’m a positive person even if I write depressed characters! That, my darlings, is what I meant by the substitute sufferers. It really does work.

I hope you will enjoy the many stories I’m going to publish in one shape or another. If I can make just person smile with my work, then it’s all worth it. I have several books in the works as we speak, as these characters have filled my head completely. If you see something on here that you like, let me know! Or if you don’t like something, let me know anyway. Any constructive criticism is most welcome. I respond back mostly in Finnish and English, but I’m open to try French and Swedish as well, the language freak that I am.