When people claim that you can’t mix business with pleasure, our colleagues love to prove them wrong. The stories they share with us confirm this. For Talal Ghadban and Pia Ebdrup from our Soborg site in Denmark, their shared passion for art is very strong. They even decided to take some of the rich colors from the PPG palette and upgrade their workspaces!
Talal: Fascinated by Colors
Talal, who has been working with us since 2016 and is our SAP master data administrator in Supply Chain, has been painting for about 15 years. It’s a passion that grew from drawing, something he’s been doing since he was old enough to hold a pencil.
Colors and their combinations have always fascinated me and still do. I find great inspiration in PPG's large palette of colors.
Talal
His work at PPG is all about numbers and codes, so painting gives balance to his life.
"It gives me peace. An overview. A sense for detail – also important for my life outside of work. And discussing art is very enriching as people see art with different eyes."
Pia: Forgetting Time
Pia is our EHS store manager in Soborg and she comes from a creative family. Her father painted a lot when she was young, and her older brother is a famous artist in Sweden who makes a lot of large paintings for hospitals.
It was only after a trip to Florida, in which her family was forced to drive in very bad, though beautiful, weather, that Pia got her artistic calling. She wanted to paint that scene. But she never really felt like she had the time. Until one day, a colleague gave her some great advice:
"She said that you never really get the time, unless you take it yourself and choose to paint," says Pia. The advice worked. Pia started painting the very next weekend and hasn’t stopped since. She now exhibits every year in a large mall in Rodovre.
I find it very relaxing to paint. I can stand in my atelier and I totally forget the time. I forget to eat or drink because I’m so immersed when I’m painting.
Pia
A Shared Colorful Workplace
We’re very lucky that both Talal and Pia also bring their passion to work. Pia decorated her office and those of her colleagues with paintings, which they keep swapping around so they can have different sources of inspiration around them while they’re working.
I love to work in a ‘colorful’ company, and I get inspiration from both our color of the year and our color map.
Pia
She also took inspiration from decorating her children’s rooms for painting our Dyrup mascot, Dyrup Mouse.
Talal, on the other hand, has painted small portraits of colleagues and held two exhibitions in the canteen for everyone to enjoy.
It gives us all an opportunity to talk about art. Some of my colleagues now own my paintings.
Talal
A Duty and an Honor
When it comes to making an impact in the community, both Pia and Talal don’t hold back. After they had donated paintings to several Charity Partner auctions at the Soborg site, they were excited to hear about our COLORFUL COMMUNITIES® initiative.
I donate a painting every year and will continue to do so. It makes me proud and happy. I feel that I’m doing my duty toward our community.
Talal
In 2019, both of our talented colleagues participated in the Soborg Keller Club project. Together with 20 colleagues, they painted and beautified the club with PPG colors. Talal and Pia also held a workshop, teaching the center’s adults with developmental disabilities to express themselves through paint.
Talal is now working on preparing even more creative workshops for the center. The project has truly sparked beautiful friendships between our employees and the center’s users.
To see their happiness in creating pictures was a great honor. It makes sense to help other people. And I love that I can contribute with my painting.
Talal
Role Models of Change for the Better
Self-starter, Talal, has some great advice about facing challenges.
We cannot wait for challenges to solve themselves. We need to get involved, not avoid taking action. Start by yourself and be a role model of change for the better.
Pia’s wisdom is something she teaches to her daughters and believes in so strongly that it's even written on her youngest’s bag: "You can do whatever you want."