Tapping inspiration with Belle Brooke Barer

This month we asked designer Belle Brooke Barer of Boulder, Colorado, Where do you find the inspiration for your next creation? Here’s what she shared with us.

So tell us. Where do you find inspiration for your designs? 

In my designs, I aim to show the relationship between natural and manmade elements. Recurring patterns in nature—a flock of birds in formation, the back of a snake, fractal formations in broccoli—intrigue me. I think that many of the patterns in nature are more controlled than people realize. We use the word “organic” so often that it has come to denote an almost chaotic free-flowing object, when in reality if you look at a millipede, a fiddlehead fern, fish scales, or a virus under the microscope what you actually see is more ordered in nature. We assume that our rigid skyscrapers and freeways are more “human” and less “nature,” but in reality these structural systems are derived from the building blocks of nature.

In my work, I try to show how intermeshed recurring patterns in nature and manmade objects really are. My aesthetic is more modern. I like control, definition, and form, which is why I am so in love with everything Art Deco.

Pendant photo by Diamond Graphics; Drawings from Animals Without Backbones by Ralph Buschsbaum.