Kanzashi design inspiration

A few years ago I went to a Creative Paper Engineering summer school at Edinburgh College of Art. One of my design inspirations for the work I did on the course was kanzashi.

I must admit that a few days into the course I felt a bit lost. The tutor told us that she wanted us to produce a final project based on the idea of “progression”, but I wasn’t really sure what I was doing, or what she expected. So I just sat there and played with paper for a while, making some hair combs and paper kanzashi and other small items.

When I told the tutor I didn’t really feel I’d achieved much that day, she had a look at what I’d been doing, managed to see some potential in it that I hadn’t, and suggested taking the ideas of the comb shapes and curled paper, playing with these a bit more, and seeing what would happen if I made them bigger and bigger. Once I had made the combs really big and curly, I started to see the form of The Great Wave emerging, and I worked towards this.

I was actually quite pleased with how my progression of combs/waves turned out in the end, and I was quite proud to have them on display in the end of week exhibition!