During the summer holidays I completed several practical training programmes, mostly with weapon manufacturers, where I was allowed to help the master engravers. After completing school, I accepted a job in France making handmade prototypes for brass costume jewellery.

When I was working in France, an elderly man who was an engraver invited me to visit his studio. His work was very impressive and only later did I learn that he was a famous engraver in this region. He was very modest, though a great engraver, and that really impressed me.

My engravings are purely handmade. I do not use machines, neither with electricity nor with compressed air. I use a hammer and a chisel or a burin. I make ornamental decorations with writing and realistic representations of animals.

I am inspired by nature, animals and plants, but also by my work and assignments of the past. Everything I have ever encountered and experienced inspires me, in fact. Engraving is subject to certain traditions, but I like to transform them and create something completely new.