Finding Home and Creativity in Reykjavik, Iceland
/Following My Heart North
After years of building my career in architecture and education, life led me somewhere completely new - north, to Iceland. I’d lived in Japan and India before, chasing opportunity, adventure, and growth. But this move was different. It wasn’t about career progression or escape. It was about following my heart.
I’d met an Icelandic man, my Viking, and after a long-distance stretch of love letters (on Messenger lol), FaceTime calls, and airport goodbyes, it was finally time to build a life together.
It was February, dark and snowing, when I landed in Reykjavik. Ingimar met me at the airport with a red rose. It felt like a movie scene - the kind you don’t realise is your life until you’re standing in it.
I’d left my job as a Senior Lecturer in the UK, packed my belongings into boxes (which were temporarily lost somewhere in the North Atlantic), and boarded a one-way flight to a new chapter. I didn’t know what lay ahead, but I knew I needed change, you know, the kind that comes with risk, stillness, and trust.
The Space to Create Again
I didn’t realise how much I’d missed being creative until I arrived here. My years in academia had been filled with meaning, but also meetings. Endless marking, admin, and university bureaucracy had slowly taken over the part of me that loved to make, sketch, and play.
Here, surrounded by snow, silence, and time, something shifted. I opened a sketchbook again - not for a deadline, not for a client, just for me. Lines turned into rooftops, rooftops into streets, and before I knew it, I was walking around Reykjavik with a pen in my hand, sketching the city’s corrugated-iron houses, its calm streets, and the life unfolding in between.
Sketching became how I found my way home. It helped me see, think, and feel grounded in this new place. Every drawing was a conversation with Iceland, like a slow, quiet way to belong here.
The Birth of Slow Design
Living here also changed how I saw design. Iceland has a rhythm of its own; unhurried, intentional, honest. You can’t rush nature here, and you (eventually) learn not to rush life either.
Slow design, for me, isn’t just about aesthetics - it’s a mindset. It’s how I now approach both architecture and life. I don’t design a home as a list of rooms and measurements; I design for people. For how they enter, live, cook, argue, gather, and rest. Form still follows function, but now I understand that function means life. The messy, beautiful, everyday kind. Motherhood made that even clearer. Homes aren’t perfect diagrams, they’re places that grow with families, full of storage for real people, quiet corners, and laughter that echoes through every space.
I take on fewer projects now so I can design deeply - to know my clients, to understand their families, and to create spaces that truly serve them. But that choice also gives me time to design my own life.
Motherhood, Creativity, and Balance
Mia was born in 2018. Angus followed in 2021. It sounds cheesy, but with them came the most creative, demanding, life-changing project I’ve ever undertaken: motherhood. I used to chase deadlines, travel, titles, and big architectural moments. Now, my priorities are different. Family comes first. It’s cliché, but it’s true - they’re the best thing I’ve ever built.
Balancing motherhood and creativity in Iceland hasn’t been easy. The winters are long and dark. The isolation can creep in quietly. There are days when I’ve missed the hum of a studio or the simple joy of chatting with students. But Iceland has taught me to slow down and find beauty in the small things. The glow of fairy lights against a snowy window, sketching while my kids nap, or writing blog posts from a warm kitchen table with a cup of tea.
Creativity fits around my life now, not the other way around.
Reykjavik Sketcher - A New Beginning
What started as a way to process the move soon became a passion, and then a business. I began sharing my sketches on Instagram under the hashtag #ReykjavikSketcher, and people started noticing. They commented, followed, and eventually asked to buy my artwork. Before long, I had opened an online shop, selling architectural sketches of Reykjavik’s houses and streets. It felt incredible to be creating again, on my own terms.
Sketching had reconnected me not only with creativity, but with freedom.
Designing My Own Life
Looking back, moving to Iceland wasn’t about starting over, it was about coming home to myself. I’m more rooted now, more stable, more peaceful. But I’ll always be adventurous at heart. I believe if you stop learning, you stop growing - and I never want to stop growing. I don’t know what’s next, but I know this: I’m proud of the choices that led me here. The leaps, the risks, the relocations. Each one shaped me into the woman, architect, educator, and mother I am today.
And as for being a so-called “geriatric mum”? I call it being a grounded one - a woman who’s lived enough lives to know what truly matters.
What Iceland Taught Me About Creativity and Home
Creativity can be rediscovered, even after burnout
Slowing down doesn’t mean giving up - it means tuning in
Balance isn’t perfect, it’s personal
Home is less about where you live, and more about where you create, love, and belong
If You’re a Returning Creative
If you’re rediscovering your creative self after burnout, motherhood, or career change - Iceland taught me that you can start again, and you can do it slowly, with grace.
Explore my FREE Resources to reconnect with drawing and Start Here for tools, courses, and inspiration to rebuild your creative confidence.
