Against the wisdom of most articles I read, I found this video of Shaun Tan at work totally inspirational. Shaun is an academy award winner for the animated film, The Lost Thing and as an illustrator and writer has written other books including my favourite The Arrival. This book is one where you don’t have to read – just see and absorb the beautiful images, revealing more about the story every time you ‘read’ it. It’s one of the books I keep in my house for ‘children’ – but then don’t let them near it.

Is thorough pre-planning  a key element of inspiration? It seems that keeping books (or weaves in my case) where I can make mistakes is how I will stumble on, refine and create something that works. Shaun, in his humble and unassuming way, makes me feel comfortable about how I generally work even though it lacks grand approaches of defined routes and mostly feels like stumbling in the dark.  But I see that you have to build up skills and experience too, but that’s just the point. Doing, doing and doing.  In the video Shaun says he doesn’t plan to do anything significant – this is way too much pressure, but with practice, enjoying what you do combined with tenacity, a significant breakthrough can happen.  Shaun has an interesting essay on originality and creativity worth reading here. To quote a small snippit which I think applies in the creation of textiles:

For me, that’s what creativity is – playing with found objects, reconstructing things that already exist, transforming ideas or stories I already know. It’s not about the colonisation of new territory, it’s about exploring inwards, examining your existing presumptions, squinting at the archive of experience from new angles, and hoping for some sort of revelation.

 To see more about Shaun Tan see his site here.