Ravētava
I recently launched my own studio, Ravētava — a cozy, hands-on space for people who want to stretch their fingers after work and create something with their hands.
It started as a simple idea: after years of working through screens, I wanted a place where creativity could be slow, tactile, and a little messy again. Ravētava became that place — a studio where I teach paper flower making, craft paper lamps, and wool felting, guiding people through techniques that trace back to my own training as a textile designer.
Running masterclasses here means owning every part of the process, from curriculum and creative direction to the everyday realities of running a small business. But more than anything, it's about the people who walk through the door — many arriving unsure if they're "creative enough," and leaving with something they made entirely with their own hands. I've learned that the goal was never to teach perfect technique. It's to help people set their imagination free, and walk away with something meaningful, something truly their own.
Liesma
Long before UX entered my life, painting was how I made sense of the world. I signed my works as Liesma, that is how my friends started to call me in my first solo exposition. (In Latvian Liesma means flame.) I trained as a painter at the Art Academy of Latvia, working large-scale in oil on wood panels I cut and prepared myself — a process that taught me as much about patience and material as it did about color and composition.
Over the years, painting has become less about capturing what I see, and more about exploring what I remember, imagine, or wish existed. My Master's thesis, Saderība, and an earlier series, Empty Film, both grew from that instinct — one rooted in botanical curiosity and imagined connections between plants, the other in memory, loss, and the fragments left behind by an empty camera roll.
