Teeny-tiny books and creativity at the November meeting

Margaret Cooter began the day with demonstrations of lots of ideas for hand-made books.

We all had scissors, paper and practiced our folding and cutting skills.

We rummaged through Margaret's fantastic stash of hand printed papers to choose our perfect cover.

And all ended up with a fantastic array of teeny-tiny books. Some were purely folded, and some were folded and stitched. All could be enlarged or adapted in numerous ways. And we went away enthusiastic to try our ideas out at home.

In between the sessions with the handmade books, we had a session on creativity led by Jane. With reference to photographs from Slough Museum we thought about the ways in which we approach our own creativity. What ideas attract you? Where do your inspirations come from and where do they lead you? What floats your boat?

External, abstract, visual based -
Are you inspired by your environment - nature, landscape, city scape - what you SEE around you? Pure textures, colours or patterns.

Knowledge or research based -
Are you inspired by what you THINK or what you know or research - history, science, facts? Culture, geography, poetry?

Evocative, emotional -
Does your work result from your emotional responses - what you FEEL about things - emotional reactions, memories or nostalgia.

I find I like to look at what I see around me, and I often think I should be inspired to make something from these inspirations, I photograph leaves or flowers or landscapes. I try sketching. But these never seem to translate into anything I can actually work from. I tend to work with ideas that stem from evocative things, or emotional reactions, things I find difficult to express with words can be translated into something I can make.

What we like isn’t necessarily the same as what we can create. What we like in other people’s work isn’t necessarily what we are good at creating ourselves.

How do you find inspiration? Is there a pattern? Are you always drawn to similar types of inspiration? Is there something entirely different which gives you your ideas? Please comment ...