Hello, my name is Barbara but I’ve always been called Bobbi by everyone. I’m bad at writing bios. I know I should use this space to promote myself, but I don’t believe I’m interesting enough. The only notable thing about me is the vet bill I’m always paying.
I live in the country with my cats, all rescued, hence the vet bills. Right now they are eighteen, but the number is always changing. I’ve been a rescuer and an animal rights volunteer for my entire adult life, and I don’t plan to stop until the day I die. I adore all animals! I never ate meat or fish and when I was fifteen, I announced I was a vegetarian. I am now vegan.
I was born and raised in downtown Milan but I knew I wouldn’t live there forever. Ever since I was a little kid, I strongly needed to be in nature, I needed space, and city life felt like a cage.
I worked in the fashion industry for many years, suffering each and every one of them. It was torture.
In 2002 I resigned and accepted a job in an emerging interior design company. Interior design was always a passion of mine, but I accepted it only because that job was the chance to leave Milan for good. So I came here, in the countryside near Lake Garda, and found this little cottage. It’s been 20 years.
Living here reignited an old dream I had as a child: I wanted to live on a farm with rescued animals, grow my food and work as an illustrator from home.
When the design company closed down, instead of following my dream I followed rationality, aka ‘what everyone else thinks you should do’: I opened a shop where I sold handmade items. After a promising start, it was a disaster. According to Murphy’s Law, if something can go wrong it will, and… it did. That shop almost killed me. So I closed that shit down and finally followed my dream of drawing from home.
Note to self: dreams and desires are guidance.
And so here I am! In a country cottage next to a farm and near a lake, drawing from home, growing – some – of my food. It’s not exactly as in my dream, but it’s almost there and it already feels good.
You should always become what you thought of becoming when you were a child.