Sometimes an idea presents itself to you and you don't know how it's going to manifest itself. Sometimes these ideas come thick and fast. Your imagination is working faster than your hands ever could.
Instead of leaving them to sink in the quicksand of memory with no certainty of excavation, it's in our best interest as creators to record them. Perhaps the idea will not come to fruition immediately. They may sit in a sketchbook or on a memory disk for years before the opportunity presents itself. I have literally thousands of thoughts and ideas filed away, still in embriotic form, waiting for their time to come.
I see these ideas like Tetris blocks. Sometimes the square shapes are coming thick and fast and all slotting in perfectly. Then ... 😩 BOOM your brain hurls an L shape at you. Sometimes the best thing to do is to welcome the shape into your life but just leave it on the side until a 'slot' appears.
Such a slot appeared this week, with the biggest waiting time one of my ideas has ever had to endure.
15 years ago in college I designed a collection of clothing based on Gothic architecture. When it came to the fashion show I had an image of the models wearing wigs made from wool with balls of wool and knitting needles stuck in them. I went to work. And (with a little help from my Mum) created the wigs for the models to wear. On a test run we decided that the wigs weren't practical for the models to wear as they had to navigate a staircase in 5" heels. The wigs went in a box.
13 years later one of the wigs presented itself to me. I did a photoshoot with Gothic/Alt model Kira Krueger. The photographs were incredible, but still there was a block. Something was saying to me "not yet".
Now, 2 years later l come across the photographs while cleaning out my computer. I was compelled to put them on Instagram. The very same day, BOOM! I get a message from someone who wants a painting of one of the shots.
17 years in the making, I'm finally going to send my girl out into the world.
The longest game of Tetris I have ever played.