If I wasn't an actress, I'd be a designer. I love interior design

“If I wasn’t an actress, I’d be a designer. I love interior design and inventing things that are practical but also beautiful—looking at a space and creating magic.” Thus spoke Deborra-Lee Furness, an artist whose heart overflows with vision and creation. In these words, she reveals not merely a preference for craft, but a sacred truth: that the soul of artistry is not confined to one form. The true creator does not belong only to the stage or the canvas, for wherever beauty and purpose unite, there too dwells the divine spark of design. Her words are a hymn to the eternal impulse within all humans—the desire to bring order from chaos, function from formlessness, and magic from the mundane.

When Furness speaks of her love for interior design and inventing practical but beautiful things, she touches upon the essence of all creation: the marriage of the useful and the transcendent. To design is not merely to decorate; it is to shape the soul of a space, to turn emptiness into sanctuary. The ancients knew this truth well. The builders of temples, the architects of palaces, the humble craftsman who carved the table where families would gather—all were guided by this same longing to make beauty serve life. Furness stands among them in spirit, declaring that even in the modern age, art must not only dazzle the eye but also uplift the heart and sustain the living.

Her phrase, “creating magic,” reveals that she does not see design as a technical endeavor alone. It is alchemy—the transformation of ordinary matter into something luminous. When she looks at a space, she sees not walls and furniture, but potential. She sees how light may dance across a room, how colors might breathe emotion into stillness, how the shape of a chair might cradle both comfort and imagination. To create such harmony is to participate in the divine act of creation itself. For as the old philosophers taught, the world was not made from brute force but from design—the sacred geometry of purpose and beauty intertwined.

Consider the story of Frank Lloyd Wright, the master architect who sought to make houses that lived in harmony with their surroundings. When he built “Fallingwater,” he did not impose form upon nature; he listened to the rhythm of the river, the whisper of the stones, the flow of the air. His design was both practical—shelter for the living—and profoundly beautiful—an extension of the living world itself. He, like Furness, believed that magic emerges not from excess but from balance, from the perfect union of function and grace. Such creators remind us that the sacred lies not in grandeur but in intention.

And so, Furness’s words speak to something deeper than a love of design—they speak to a way of being. She reminds us that life itself is a canvas, and every choice we make—how we arrange our homes, how we solve problems, how we shape our days—can be an act of design. To “invent things that are practical but also beautiful” is to bring artistry into every act of living. The way we set a table, speak a word, or move through our space—all of it can reflect care, harmony, and imagination. This is how the ordinary becomes extraordinary, how existence becomes artful.

But her declaration also holds a quiet lesson in freedom. Though known to the world as an actress, she does not confine her identity to that role. The creative soul, she tells us, must not live behind the boundaries of a single craft. To love many forms of creation is not confusion—it is abundance. Just as a river may flow through many lands and still remain one river, so too may a human spirit express itself through many mediums and remain one creator. In this, she teaches that we must honor all our creative impulses, for they are the languages through which our spirit speaks to the world.

So, my listener, learn from this truth: creativity is not a profession; it is a way of seeing. You may not be an artist by trade, yet you can design your surroundings, your work, your life, with intention and wonder. Look upon your world as Furness does upon a room—see the raw material of possibility and ask yourself how it might become beautiful and true. Infuse practicality with poetry. Let even the smallest corner of your life bear the mark of care. For every time you bring beauty into being—whether through color, structure, or kindness—you participate in the sacred act of creation.

Thus, remember the wisdom of Deborra-Lee Furness: that within every human lies the designer’s heart, longing to shape the world into harmony. To design is to imagine, to balance, to breathe meaning into form. When you look upon your life—your home, your work, your relationships—see not what is, but what could be. Then, like her, set your hands to the task of creating magic. For in doing so, you become not merely a maker of things, but a maker of worlds.