Melissa Oesch shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Hi Melissa, thank you for taking the time to reflect back on your journey with us. I think our readers are in for a real treat. There is so much we can all learn from each other and so thank you again for opening up with us. Let’s get into it: What do you think is misunderstood about your business?
I often have people make comments towards me about how I’m doing my passion or living my dream. These statements feel loaded. They tend to be filled with a “must be nice to be you” attitude, sometimes jealousy, or, at best, a “good job”. It can feel dismissive of the actual amount of work and time and energy that I give to making handmade goods and all the logistics that come with figuring out how to also sell them much less the laborious act of setting up, selling, and tearing down at an art show. I do largely enjoy what I do. I enjoy the act of creating. I enjoy meeting new people and having a chance to connect in an art show setting. I enjoy working for myself, although I joke that I’ve never worked so hard and I’ve always been a hard worker. However, it’s not a joke. I typically work 7 days a week and these are very often long hours. I wouldn’t necessarily say that I am passionate about making journals or leather bags. Life led me to this and it keeps working. It mostly brings out a good side of me and keeps me learning and growing on multiple levels. It has been my sole source of income for 15 years, and I’m grateful that it has provided me a living. It has also been unpredictable, stressful, and tedious, offering up challenge after challenge of aspects to figure out and overcome in order to continue moving forward. What I feel is most misunderstood about my business is people’s idealistic version of what they think having an artisan business is like versus what it actually is.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Hello, my name is Melissa Oesch and my business is ReImagined by Luna. I create handbound leather journals and sketchbooks and leather bags out of upcycled leather. Most of the scrap leather I am using is from purse and boot factories, although I use some other scrap leather as well including upholstery samples and couch leather. Speaking of couches, one interesting commission that I did was from purple couch leather. A lady reached out to me about a purple couch that her children has grown up on and then her son had taken to college. It was time to retire the couch, but she didn’t just want to throw it away. I ended up making multiple items for her over the course of several years. Now, her and her children are carrying journals and leather bags that were once their couch.
Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. What did you believe about yourself as a child that you no longer believe?
As a child, I often held my breath. There were various circumstances that caused me to be on high alert and always watching and waiting for the next difficult thing to happen. This continued and grew even louder as a young adult. It was the case of “waiting for the next shoe to drop”. It was embedded in my psyche and nervous system, and I moved around braced for the next bad situation that would inevitably happen. One night shortly after graduating college, I was in that soft place between sleep and awake. The word “reimagine” came to mind. I immediately knew that I needed to grab hold of this to let go of some of what had happened and to also launch myself forward. The meaning was clear: I had begun to expect life to be hard and to throw situations at you that would leave you reeling and wondering how you’d survive. I needed to “reimagine” my life. I needed to give it the option to be good and not simply assume the worst. It’s been a slow unfolding as I’ve learned to let this be true. I’m built for resilience, but I’m also more than that. Life is more than difficult. It can also be beautiful, challenging in constructive ways, joyful, and more. My business name was based on this. Yes, I used reclaimed leather, reimagining scraps. However, the larger meaning is to let Life be more than one thing, and certainly, more than hard. It can even be good.
If you could say one kind thing to your younger self, what would it be?
I would tell my younger self that life will get better and that her tenacity will serve her more than she knows. I would tell her that she is carrying more than she realizes, and a day will come when life isn’t as heavy. What she doesn’t know about the future yet is that you get to choose more than you know. As a child, your world is small and is only what you are exposed to. Once you get a little older and obtain a little more footing, you start to construct your own life and can choose to give yourself a better foundation. You can bring intention and protect yourself in ways that you couldn’t when you were little. I would tell her that she isn’t forever at the mercy of other people’s choices. There will come a time when she can make her own choices and not have whiplash from what is happening around her. As a young person, I use to say “as long as there is breath, there is hope”, and I would deep down hope that was true and not a fantasy. It was my way of clinging to something to pull me forward. I would tell my younger self that she is headed in the right direction and that hope is worth clinging to. However, there will soon come a time when you can make solid decisions with intention that will lead to a more meaningful life, one where you don’t solely survive but also thrive.
I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. Is the public version of you the real you?
The public version of me is real, but it is one facet of me. I tend to be straightforward with people. I’ve never been into games or pretending to be something I’m not. However, I’ve also learned to protect certain aspects of myself and to hold my personal life in a private way. I do not put all of me on display either in public or on social media. If you encounter my public self, you may think you know more about me than you do. I enjoy people and like to engage others in an authentic way. All of that is real. However, I may also come across as an extrovert. I can be an extrovert, but I can also be highly introverted. I charge my battery through alone time and need that kind of solo time to be able to engage others well and to create. Yes, my public self is real, but there is far more to me than that.
Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. What will you regret not doing?
I will likely regret not traveling more. While I’ve had the chance to travel some, there are so many places I’m interested in. My younger self would be shocked at how little I’ve traveled. My mom used to say that she expected me to leave the country at 18 and not come back because I’d be off on adventures. I do my own version of traveling and adventures with traversing the region doing art shows. However, I definitely want to carve out time for traveling without having to work.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.reimaginedonline.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reimaginedbyluna
- Facebook: http://facebook.com/reimaginedbyluna
Image Credits
Erica Chambers (first 3 photos)
Melissa Oesch (the rest of them)
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
