Searching for Beauty in The Chaos of Life

with Artist Louise Mertens

Louise, do you remember the first time you expressed yourself creatively?

I don't have a lot of memories from my childhood, but I do remember being creative from a very young age. My mom always told me that when I was two or three years old, I was already introverted, having my own little table with crayons and paper. I used to draw. I wasn't very good at it. Never, actually. But I liked doing it. I was also building houses out of paper. I loved magazines and would rip out their pages, tape them, and build different floors and a roof. I would create a maquette like architects make, but then I did that as a three or four-year-old (smiles).

What I also remember is, when I was fifteen or even younger, my parents — both architects — had the first Macintosh computer. This is when I started being creative again after many years, but digitally then. The computer was black and white at the time, but it had a certain paint program where I could create things by drawing lines. It was very fascinating to me. Shortly after that, I had my own computer — something I really wanted. I started making collages with cutouts from magazines. I always liked making things, but didn't know this was something that I could one day make money out of.

It's so interesting that you created buildings out of paper — the influence of your parents was definitely there (smiles). Would you say that the atmosphere in your household was a good place for creativity to thrive?

I was very shy and introverted and, for me, creating was a very personal thing. I never felt that it was shaped by my parents. I just witnessed them working. Creativity was a safe space — something that I completely lost my mind in, like meditation. It still is. I really love going into the flow of creating and not thinking about anything else. It's one of the very few things that feel very true to my nature.

But growing up, I never imagined myself in a specific job or profession. When I was eighteen, I graduated from high school and didn't know what I was going to do study-wise. I decided to travel and was also doing modelling at the time. I did that for two years, and then my mother advised me to get into The School of Arts. I passed the exams and went to study graphic design. During that period, I started producing digital artwork in my spare time. I felt that at school, I had to fit into this box of “what was expected from a graphic design student”, so I found this huge outlet to create what was truly in me, what was driving me.

You got your bachelor's and master's degree in graphic design and opened a creative studio right after graduation. Was it a hard decision for you, and can you tell me about that time of your life?

This was something influenced by my parents because they’ve always been freelancers, independent, working under their own name. I feel like, for a lot of people, setting up their own business is the scariest thing in the world. But I was raised with the idea that if it doesn't work out, you just stop and do something else. You're not going to lose a ton of money — especially not in the beginning. You obviously have to be smart with how you arrange things, but if it doesn’t work out, it’s not the end of the world.

When I started my own business, I had two clients. I was making flyers for a club and branding for someone else. It was actually nothing if I look back. But very quickly, more people started being interested in working with me, and my business grew. It wasn’t scary, it was really exciting. I'm still like that — I do things that are, you know, a bit crazy regularly (smiles). It's something that I really look for — these challenges.

When you look back at those early days working for yourself and starting to develop your craft and your own style, how important do you think it was to go through all the challenges to get to the point where you are now?

I think it's such a beautiful thing: when you're in the moment, you don't realize what you're doing, and then, a few years later, you look back and see that you really created something there. After two years, everything started happening for me. I applied for an internship at Sagmeister & Walsh (a NYC-based design studio that operated in 2010-2019 and was founded by world-renowned graphic designers Stefan Sagmeister and Jessica Walsh). I got accepted and went to New York. Back then, Stefan Sagmeister was The Rolling Stones in graphic design for me. This internship was a dream of mine, and I was in that crazy city. It was only for three months, but I learned so much and got so much experience. I came back working for myself again and had so much energy. I would create logos and artworks in one night — I was on a roll (smiles). It was a really beautiful moment in my career. So it all comes from energy, right?

Speaking of energy, a common theme in many of your interviews and posts is the importance of stillness and quietness. Was there a particularly chaotic period in your life that forced you to see the value of being still?

My whole life has been very chaotic ever since I was born. My parents divorced when I was a child. Moving from one place to another, everything was chaos. It's something that you're so used to that you almost look for it. So I became a chaotic person myself. But from deep down, my core needs the complete opposite. I'm very bad at handling “too much”. And I was thrown into the profession of graphic designer where stress is a very common thing. So I had to learn how to be good at my passion and also deal with these huge amounts of stress that come with it.

I remember back in 2017, I was completely drained. I had headaches for over a year. I couldn't find a solution, went to many doctors, did massages, took a month-long sabbatical. It was then that I started to discover the more — I don’t like this word but — “spiritual” side of things. I read a lot of books. I learned how to ease my body and mind. To this day, I do a lot to maintain that. But I think this balance between the chaos, which I love as well, and the stillness, which is necessary for me, is always going to be a huge challenge. I don't think there will ever be a day when I'm like, “Okay, I got it now”. But I became a lot better at it.

The idea of balance is such an ambiguous one. I remember reading that there is no such thing as balance. Some days you lean more into your work, some days you dedicate more time to your personal life. That's just how it goes — there are different priorities each day. You have a three-and-a-half-year-old son, client projects, personal art, and many other things on your plate. How do you approach “balancing” it all?

I think it requires some planning in advance. For example, I worked a lot during my pregnancy, and I loved it. But then it was important for me to stay at home with Alexis when he was born. So I did that. And now I'm really good at managing my time with him. He's not feeling all the work that I'm doing for now. It's not always easy — sometimes I work on weekends or at night if I have a deadline. But that's something you know you're going to sacrifice if you decide to have a child. So I'm actually very happy that I can still maintain a career and be a mother.

My studio is also eleven years old now, and I’ve built a lot of experience over the years. You become more confident in what you create, and you get faster. And now I rarely take on projects like designing a logo, where you have to be in front of the computer for nine hours a day. I find a lot more inspiration and joy in doing creative direction, being in this huge process of creating concepts, campaigns, and directing photoshoots.

And then, my personal art is something completely different for me. Trying to find time for my art has always been a huge struggle. That's probably one of the reasons why I wanted to move to a different country — to have a less intense social life and more time to create. So this balance between client and personal work will stick around for at least a few years. But the dream of the dream would be to only create my own work. The freedom of creating for myself, without any external input, is indescribable. There's nothing like trusting your own instincts and following them.

You mentioned your move — two years ago, you and your family left Belgium to start a new life in Portugal. I found a quote from the interview that you did back in 2021 which goes “My goal is to be happy and just enjoy my life — the little moments, the small things.” Was your move striving to achieve such a life?

Yes, even though such a way of living was so new to me. I was born in the city and always have been a city girl. I had no idea what it would feel like to be closer to nature. I live thirty-five minutes away from Lisbon now, and it's honestly amazing. I bike for ten minutes and I'm at the beach. Alexis finishes school at four, and we go for a bike ride among the pine trees. The air is so clean here, and the birds are singing every day. Even just riding my bike to yoga class, I’m fully present at such moments and realize how different my previous life was. I can never go back to something else, I think (smiles). At least not for the next ten years.

It seems like you've built a very fulfilling life for yourself. You have a beautiful family, friends that you cherish, an amazing career, you travel around the world and live close to nature. What advice would you give someone who values the same things and wants to build their life around them?

It's good to have a vision and dreams — always have them — but don’t focus on trying to predict the future too much. Something that I’ve always done is making sure that I’m happy today and that I'm doing the things that have to be done today. It goes back to what I was saying earlier: you don’t always realize what you’re doing in the moment, but after a while, you see that it's something that you did right. So I’m not very busy with planning the next five years — I have no idea where I’m going to be. But today, I like it here, and it gives me a certain calmness and trust that everything will come as it’s meant for me.

One more thing I would add: I’ve always been fascinated by one of Stefan Sagmeister’s artworks. It's called “Actually Doing the Things”. I love this sentence so, so much. For me, it means that if you want to write a book, do it. Start it. Make the first five pages. I always tell myself, “Just do it”. This drive is so important — it's what made me an entrepreneur.

I completely agree with you. I think you can never predict what you’re going to be in the future from the point you’re now at, because, hopefully, your vision and understanding of what you’re capable of will expand as you go. Otherwise, you're limiting yourself to only what your mind is currently able to see.

It's so true. And what I would also tell young designers, creatives, and artists: other people will always have an opinion but don't let it hold you back. I see it in the younger generation: they want to have everything perfect from the start, they're afraid to make mistakes, to post things that are still in progress, that are not ready. And, on the contrary, they are creating profiles where their work looks like renders of an architect with forty years of experience. And I think, “Come on, be humble, show the process.” Even if you're going to laugh about it in five years, it's very important to do. Because then you can see the growth. Otherwise, there is no growth.

And the interesting thing is that people who are just like you — who are also trying to build or create something — admire your efforts and see your potential even if you share something that’s not “perfect”. As long as you're not giving up and evolving, your crowd will be attracted to this energy.

Exactly. And it's the only way that you're going to find your own style and signature — the most difficult thing for an artist to do. It takes many, many years, but you achieve it through trial and error, by doing the work. You have an idea? Do it, try it and see. That's experience. That's how you make something unique, characteristic and personal. So put everything out there. Some things will be nice. Others will be failures. But it is always like that. It's life.