Inspiration, where does it come from?

A lot of people often ask me where my inspiration comes from. Originally, my inspiration came from my partner, who wanted me to make her a weather vane. At first, I was not interested at all. But one night, I woke up with an idea and went down to the shed. In the early hours of the morning, I laid out some scrap motorcycle chain and parts, and my idea was born.

From there, I started creating whirligigs. Some were commissions, so they were not my original ideas, but they were my design. Whereas things like the golfer, the swimmer, etc., were created based on the recipient's hobby or passion, and the kayak fisherman was my interpretation of what I was asked to make. But then I started changing to more artistic pieces, and I have slowly moved away from whirligigs. The original inspiration for these pieces came from a guy called Anthony Howe. He creates massive kinetic sculptures that I would love to be able to make, but I am limited by the size of my shed. I am already struggling with the size of my pieces and often think about expanding. But I love working at home, and the only way this would work would be to move to a house with a much bigger garden and maybe even a place with a barn, so it is unlikely to happen.

Anyway, I digress, so back to inspiration. Each piece is different, and one of my latest pieces, Still Standing, has been something that evolved over various ideas/concepts.

Its origin came from a toy that was in the '70s called Weebles. I had this vision of a sculpture that was on a hemisphere that could just wobble around the garden (I still like this idea) but felt that it would not work for various reasons and would be very dependent on the ground it was on. I then thought of making it in a stainless steel shallow bowl so it would always work its way back to its original place. But rain would bring dirt, and dirt would create noise and also scratch the sculpture, etc.

But from this, I thought about having a weighted form that would sway in the wind and put it on a pivot so it could turn into the wind. But after sketching various patterns, it did not excite me enough to make it, so I shelved it until I came up with the idea of making it out of several pieces that also rocked and spun. I plan to make a second version of this where each piece not only rocks on its own pivot but that each piece will also be free to spin. This will be quite a complex mechanism to fabricate, but I do have a plan. But I do not know how it will behave.

Some of my pieces, like YinYang, are simply based on a symbol, and I spend my waking life looking at everything from nature to geometry and think about how I can animate it and make it come alive in a breeze. Sadly, not everything I make works as I envisage and now resides in the recycle pile waiting to be repurposed. Other pieces I have just spend ages sketching shapes until I get something I like. I then have to find a way of making it, and that in itself can be a challenge, as I have limited space and tooling I have to design around what I have. Sometimes I have to make or even buy new tools to be able to make something. For example, I am in need of a slip roller but cannot find one that is the right size and cost. So I have designed my own and hope to be making it soon, but need to borrow a friend's workshop. My friend Mick has been a great help over the years as he has often let me use his small machine shop, but as it is a business, I have to work around him and his availability.

What I have learnt over the years is that the more complicated the piece the less likely it is to work. Also the more complicated the piece does not necessarily make it more mesmerising. So the age old adage of keep it simple often works. And yes size matters. The bigger the better, the larger the surface area the better for light winds.