Biography of a fine bag maker

In August 2020, Maldine Schöller started her apprenticeship as a fine bag maker in our manufactory in Obertshausen. She tells her story of how she found her way to the craft and to PICARD in this biography.

Do you also have a fascination for craftsmanship and love to make beautiful things? Then the profession of fine woodcarver is just right for you and you can read more about it in this blog post. Learn more about the apprenticeship now.

"This biography was written just a short time after my 30th birthday. The urge to learn slowly wanes, but what emerges is the need to create something with my own hands and to be able to make a living from it. To trace this change, I have to go a little further.

I am now an apprentice again - after five and a half years of study. This training is the third major phase of my life. I am very volatile and believe that life speaks to me very clearly, even if it may hardly seem so from the outside. But in order.

My full name: Maldine Latoria Schöller.

My love for leather came when I was learning archery. It was then that I made a leather bird feather with my hands - and finally decided on a life path. This was followed by my application to PICARD, and with it came my transformation from a mauler to a craftsman.

Now, how does modeling digital stones, which is what I spent a good part of my studies on, relate to hammering in leather edges, which is what I spend a good part of my training on?

For me, the connection between these two, admittedly sometimes tough, activities lies in a deep love - the love of creating beautiful things.

What's relevant is the difference: while when you create digital products you end up with nothing in your hands, constantly stressed out while chasing the latest information, crafting is just the opposite.

For me, working as a craftsman is a combination of concentration and meditation.

Concentration when I learn a move, mastering it to the point where I can use it without much thought. Then dropping into a meditative state where my body takes control and I can watch my hands and materials at work as if through the eyes of a second person.

There are no shortcuts in craft. Every move requires patience and practice. If at the end of the day I can bring joy to customers with my work, if they then smile, then that brings me just as much joy.

And then I think to myself that I have found something wonderful in this old craft that I can enjoy for the rest of my life. Can master.

What else is there to tell about me? Before I started my training, a lot happened in my life, of course. Sports, especially athletics, shaped my youth. And apart from sports, all I could really do was draw, gamble and, inevitably, go to school. After graduating from high school, I jumped into the deep end and traveled to India for a voluntary social year. New Delhi was to be my new home for twelve months. To describe everything that happened to me there would go beyond the scope of my biography, but above all I tried to break through language and cultural barriers with my hands and feet - and to teach math and English to girls from an orphanage. Learning Hindi in the process. Then it's back to Germany to study. Biosciences at the University of Potsdam. And I quickly realize that somehow I don't fit in. After two semesters I take a break, study computer science and realize: I fit in here, but my brain does not. So I try to find something that fits in with the hobbies of my school days, a course of study that combines creativity with digital. Three years later, the second interval of my life ends: with a bachelor with distinction in game design, specialized in 3D. Already during my studies I achieved stage successes in the industry, as part of the "EXIT Live Adventures" I worked on the Escape Room scenario "HUXLEY". As the first VR escape room adventure in Europe, the project won numerous awards. Since my year abroad, I have worked in numerous industries parallel to my studies: whether at the snack stand, in the outdoor pool, on the assembly line, behind the supermarket checkout and the counter. I optimized online articles for a large media company, sold contracts at Potsdam's main train station, served appetizers to high society at Hypovereinsbank events. The urge to learn new things and the curiosity about how I would react if I failed still drive me today. Of course, you can't always succeed - but you can try."

Maldine's passion for craftsmanship excites you as well? You too? Have the chance to become part of the great PICARD family, and create beautiful things! PICARD is one of the last instructors in the field of fine artisans in the whole of Germany. Your interest is aroused? Then take a look here!