Creative Inspiration for Jewellers Who Can't Visualise

Did you know that some people can just close their eyes and see their next masterpiece? That MOST people can visualise their ideas and dream up new ones? Yeah, that's not me. My mind's eye is as blank as a new sheet of silver, but it can also be equally as shiny!

If you struggle with creativity, and especially if you always thought the phrase "Counting Sheep" was a concept to think about rather than a moving image you could pay in your mind, you may have aphantasia.

But don't worry, I've got some tricks up my sleeve that have helped keep my creativity flowing, and they just might help you too.

"Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything.

That’s how the light gets in." - Leonard Cohen, “Anthem”

Be Open To Real World Inspiration

For me, it's all about letting the world around us spark creative ideas. While I can not visualise ideas from scratch, my brain is very good a recognising when something reminds me of something else that is seemingly unrelated. While I still can't 'see' the thing I've been reminded of in my mind, often a quick google search confirms my hunch. Toilets in Devon do indeed look like stingray!

Just wandering the streets offers a wealth of form, texture and colour combination ideas. Taking a moment to look a little closer and document what you see with your camera can lead to a valuable inspiration resource.

Collect Tactile Objects and Pleasing Forms

If you struggle to keep a sketchbook, why not keep the real things? My studio is full of found objects such as feathers, pebbles, and twigs. Shiny buttons and rusty metal. I collect old tins and old tools. If something is too precious, too big or too unstable to keep, Polaroids act as nice reminders and visual inspiration.

Deploy Your Other Senses

I always tell my students to close their eyes and feel their work. We may think a piece of jewellery is finished, but often our hands will pick up on the things our eyes miss. Rough surfaces, jaggy corners, or an imbalance of weight.

We focus on looking to see, but our other senses can tell us far more than our eyes.

During my Art Foundation Year, we were set the task of being given a herb or spice and we were asked to create a piece of work in response to its visual look, tactile feel, emotive smell and physical taste. I was given cardamon and I can't recall the work I made, but to this day, I still have a visceral (and negative) reaction when I accidentally eat one!

Push Yourself Outside Your Comfort Zone

If you feel it is important to keep a more traditional sketchbook, it will feel more natural, and your skills will improve with practice and repetition. During formal education, a sketchbook is often an essential part of the marking criteria, and as such, I have created a variety of sketchbooks over the years. Looking back at them, they mostly consist of collages, photography and drawings I've made of real-life things I could see in front of me or I had drawn from photographs. The few sketches I made during the initial design processes bear zero relation to the pieces of jewellery I've ever made. The sketches that are more in keeping and successful were made after the jewellery was already in existence. When a sketchbook is a mandatory requirement, reverse engineering your sketches after you've created your jewellery can be a useful activity.

Be Open To Happy Accidents

When you struggle with planning, it's not surprising when things don't go as planned! Embrace the process, feel the metal and respond as it takes shape. If something doesn't quite look right or work, don't be afraid to change it. Soldering is an important skill for many jewellery makers, but learning how to unsolder can be just as important. The ring below was made by one of my students. It was sand cast, but she initially considered it a failure as it is a 'partial cast'. The thin areas, undulating edges and gnarly texture are because the silver did not flow all the way around her mould. While she was initially displeased with this ring, she did agree not to melt it down and allowed me to photograph it. There is a photo of this ring displayed in my studio, and it is by far the most popular inspiration image in my workshop. When people do have strong internal visualisation or have planned exactly how they wish their piece to look, it can be hard when things don't turn out as expected. But it doesn't mean they're not beautiful pieces in their own right. Being open to happy accidents can be very rewarding.

Create Organic Form

Techniques such as Water Casting and Spaghetti Casting create organic and often unexpected forms, which can spark design ideas. These techniques are particularly useful as they don't require any expensive tools and are the perfect way to use up your metal off-cuts and 'scrap'. If you don't like any of the forms you create, you can just melt them down and have another go. You can see some gorgeous earrings my student Marina made by casting her scrap silver onto coffee beans in the video below.

Go With The Flow

In 2017, before I learnt about aphantasia, I decided to set myself a challenge to help kickstart my creativity. I called it #MiSilverChallenge and I took a single piece of silver, and proceeded to turn it into 100 different pieces of jewellery over 100 consecutive days. It was partly to show how recyclable and 'cost-effective' silver can be, and partly to apply pressure to myself and limit my ability to procrastinate. I was teaching full time, and people were checking in daily to see what I had made, so I just had to get on with it and make something, anything in the limited time I had. The most common question I received was 'how far did you plan each design in advance? And how did you plan each transition from one piece of jewellery to the next?'

As this was before I knew about aphantasia, I didn't realise that I was incapable of visualising my designs and how they would morph from one form to the next. All I knew was that I did not plan. Instead, I would look at my current piece of jewellery, poke it a bit, start chopping it up and wait for my hands to start making it into something new. I went with the flow and was wholly led by the materials.

You can read more about that project here.

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Thought For The Day

There are multiple ways to explore creativity. Be open to what sparks your interest and, where possible, document it for future use.