Hidden Sources for What Inpires

Inspiration - What is it and Where Does it Come From?

Have you ever wondered why, as a maker/creative, you have chosen certain design elements for a particular project instead of others? Conversely, have you ever looked at something, tilted your head and thought, "I must include that into my next (painting, knitwear, woven item, etc...)"? Or maybe you read a book which caused such powerful visualizations that those made the cut into your next design.

I have often wondered about the relationship between ideas, objects that inspire, and creativity. 

I recently had an experience with the effect of inspiration on creativity and design that really surprised me. I had discovered that an obejct within my home that I see every single day had a significant influence on an object I was weaving and had designed using some software; however, I was not aware of this until I was about ninety-five percent done with the piece! Instead of bringing me answers, this realization brought more questions about the nature of that inspiration/creativity dependency. Perhaps you the reader will have some answers. At the very least, I hope this post gives some food for thought!

New Beginnings on an Old Floor Loom

I recently finished my first floor loom weave on a new-to-me Cherrywood Norwood 40” floor loom. It was approached with an experimental mindset, in anticipation of the worst, but hoping for the best. The wrap turned out much better than I ever thought it would, and was such a pleasure to weave!

Initially, I thought I had been solely inpired by a pattern from Gist yarn that is a twill sampler scarf. When I looked at this free pattern from Gist, I thought it looked too busy for what I wanted, and decided to edit it down to only the broken twill pattern. I also shortened the plain weave sections. I played with the concept in the weaving software, iWeaveit. When I was designing in that software, it occurred to me that it needed a little more variation, so I included the taupe stipes in the warp during the design process. This is reflected in the final product.

The images below show the wrap as it is warped on the loom. It uses 3/2 cotton in cream and taupe with a 3/2 cotton black weft. I wanted the width to be 16" and used a 12 dent reed. The loom is a 4 shaft, 6 treadle loom, so the main pattern was on 4 of the treadles while the plain weave was dedicated to the additional 2 treadles.

And Then This Happened...

I'm getting ready for the day, taking a shower - thinking all those thoughts about what I need to do the rest of the day, the chores I have to get done, did my dog do his business, etc... and I look to my left and notice the shower curtain.

So what?

What about a shower curtain, most people use glass doors because it is more modern and looks nicer.

That's not what I'm saying...

The shower curtain 

    looks

            like

                    THIS!

And that's when it hit me - 

Maybe what we are calling inspiration is more a resurrection of sorts of those familiar objects that seep into our unconscious mind and get expressed in other ways via a person's creativity.

What Do You Think?

How have you experienced that thing everyone calls inspiration? Have you ever realized after the fact that something you made was in fact influenced by something you read or saw? 

Let me know in the comments below!