Find your story and tell it

What is a common feature among people with reputation? They all have a story to tell.

Think of someone who left an unforgettable impression to you? How do you remember the person still after years? I claim that an ingredient for deep impact is to have a story to tell - something that the listener will remember you of. Do you have a story? Want to share it?

Storytelling is one of the best ways to remember things. That's why people with great memory rely on narrative rather than repetition.

This all may be self-explanatory, but still I indulge you with an example that happened four years back: Timo Rännäli, an artist whom I met in New Zealand, told me a story how he had ended up to be a painter.

Before coming actually face to face with him, I had seen of his works printed in post cards and as posters around the coastal town of Mt. Maunganui, the place we both resides at the time. His vibrant paintings were sure to catch anyone's eye.

One day on my way home I found out where his studio was. My curiosity rose as I saw the signature "Timo Rannali" in the bottom right corner. It's a quite obvious name for a Finn, though without the dots over the letter 'a'. As I had not met a single Finnish person for about 11 months, I resolved to open the door and walk the stairs up to his neat workroom.

Timo was sitting on a small revolving stool. He was holding a color palette under his thumb, and finishing a large paintwork with a brush that seemed too tiny for the purpose. His back was bent towards the three-stem frame as he was finishing a detailed part of the painting.

Soon he placed the pencil and the palette aside, turned on the stool and stood up. I thought I'd surprise him by opening the conversation in Finnish; so I said "Hei Timo! Mitä kuuluu?" Probably not the best idea, because It made his head flush, and for a moment he seemed totally unsure of what to do. Then in an infallible Kiwi accent he explained that his Finnish is not quite enough to make a conversation.

It takes a while to forget your mother tongue, so how long had he been in New Zealand already? "I immigrated to New Zealand when I was still a young boy," he clarified. "My father lives now in Finland, and several years ago I visited him, and Finland. Now I'm mostly spending my time painting and surfing. If you want to catch some waves, I'll borrow my surfing board to you..." Then Timo changed the discussion to art.

He told that the influence to his work comes from children. "Before becoming a full time artist I was an elementary school teacher. At the art classes I would ask the children to tell about their creations, and always they came up with stories." Timo took the idea and started to illustrate stories on to canvas. The problem was that a long story made him run out of space. To overcome the obstacle, Timo figured to draw through a fish-eye perspective so that the landscapes would curve around, and fit to the original area.

The story about how Timo had ended up as an artist, and how his work was influenced by children was a story peculiar enough to stick in my memory.

Did you already make a story of your own?

(See more of Timo Rännäli's work here)