My Japanese Inspiration

In my last post I was talking about what inspiration I was bringing back from Japan and I found a few words to sum up what I loved about it.  As well as feelings and words I have bought a few physical things back which act as a visual reminder, transporting me back to those feelings of inspiration with every glance. Let me introduce you to a couple of them...

One evening in Tokyo we visited the Aoyama Book Store in Roppongi. They had so many beautiful books and even though we couldn't read a word their strong aesthetics kept us perusing the shelves for a couple of hours. 

I couldn't put this book down. Flower Book by Rari Yoshio. The mixture of beautiful line drawings and flower photography all laid out so simply made it a must have. You see I also had 'homework' from my web design team (Ffion and Robert) to gather visual inspiration for the new website that they are building me over the summer.

This book sums up the simplicity that I would love to create with my website.

I want it to be a mixture of my drawings and photographs of my lamps.

Perhaps not the Japanese text...but you never know, if I do get my lamps into Japan I might just have to do some translation!

Back home in Hebden Bridge I meet up with Sarah to discuss a studio/shop photo-shoot that we have been planning for a while. I showed her the book and she totally got what I wanted. We're very excited (as we often are...it doesn't take much).

(photo by Sarah Mason Photography)

We did our big photo-shoot. I can't share all the photos yet, they are for another day, but here is one that Sarah took of the grasses that I was drawing. She so got it. 

And here is the drawing. 

( photo by Sarah Mason Photography)

And this photo shows the beautiful mug that I bought from the craft fair in Kyoto. I love it so much and feel the inspiration with every cup of tea....in fact I've been drinking a little too much tea because it's so nice to hold and drink from.

Now I'm not really bothered about having things for the sake of things. If it's not special to me I'd rather not have it at all but I love it when objects can transport you back to a happy memory, or spark an idea, or a whole host of ideas, or inspire other people too. They are the best things. Those ones can stay. x