Mireille Duiven

Tell us about your career?

I am a brand creative and art photographer. I connect people to beauty. I do that in different ways. Through my company Lucky Lois I help entrepreneurs with visual branding. When you are inspired, want to make an impact, and communicate this distinctly and stylishly, then you take yourself, your work, and your customers seriously. That makes the world a more beautiful place.

With Lois in space, I make art photography for your home or workplace. Beauty is in everyday materials, nature, shape, and color. It is the source of my inspiration and tells stories with it that leave room for the imagination.

I also teach at Academy Artemis in Amsterdam. I try to impart my love for creativity and beauty to the students. To encourage them to look at things differently.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

I am happy. This is due to at least two important things.

With my knowledge and skills, I can make other people happy. I am grateful that I have followed my heart and arranged my life to do what makes me happy.

But it is also that I have been able to give the sadness of not having children a place. I went through the fertility process for two years. Then, I was diagnosed with endometriosis. I had surgery for it, but I couldn’t keep up the treatments any longer. It cost me too much joy in life. So the pain of not having children remained, and I had to find a way to deal with it.

I decided at one point that I didn’t want to become an embittered woman and that I wanted to enjoy the children around me. My nieces and nephew, children of friends, and my stepson. Of course, the sadness is there too. Every now and then, it surfaces unexpectedly. Then, when watching a loving family scene in a movie or on the street, that painful spot is suddenly touched. Then I have to cry very hard. I allow that to happen. Of course, I do walk away from the scene, but the sadness is allowed to be there. It no longer dominates my life.

Teaching also fulfills a primal urge or desire, or however, you want to call it. The students can be my children in terms of age. I can give them something, and they provide something to me. They can move me, make me laugh, and their wisdom inspires me. They have no idea how happy it makes me when they say that it was fun teaching aer a block!