Inspiring Stuff

So, what inspires us? I think I am lucky in that I can see beauty anywhere – there’s always a colour palate that I can see working for something else, or a shape that could translate to a piece of jewellery or clothing.The trick is to not always look at everything together but to break it down into smaller pieces until you find the part you like. Take this morning, for example, I was driving up the M1. It was raining and foggy, I was surrounded by tarmac and truckers and the prospect for the day looked pretty dismal. But the fog was patchy and covered the road in some places more than others and there was just this tiny point in between the patches where the most lovely blue-grey materialised. And then it was gone, just like that. But it worked. And it worked next to the black or the tarmac and the brown-grey of the fog and the reflection of the car in front’s brake lights…

So there’s definitely a scheme of earthy jewellery to be had from that, right?

But that wasn’t it. Most people would probably be annoyed if this happened to them and in fact, when it actually happened, I was annoyed and actually, for a split second, scared! Literally a ROCK flew up off the M1 and slammed into the top of my windscreen, approximately level with my face. My heart skipped a little beat, then I went “Oh, S**T”, and then a few cracks started creeping out of each side… and then I saw the amazing symmetry with which this has happened and I smiled. After a second, I remembered I should be watching the road and put on hold looking at the thing until I stopped in the services. But when I did, it sort of looked like a snowflake…

What was even more amazing (or annoying?!) was that it kept spreading. Every time I hit a little bump, it sort of extended by a few millimetres. It finally stopped, looking a little bit like that one there. Some snowy inspiration in time for Christmas I reckon…