Tapping inspiration with Gregoré Morin

This month we asked designed Gregoré Morin of Gregoré Joailliers in Santa Barbara, California, Where do you find the inspiration for your next creation? Here’s what he shared with us.

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

That’s simple: Everything inspires me. It’s less about finding inspiration and more about the process of managing all that information. It starts with awareness. You need to be aware of everything around you, because anything can become an inspiration—from a leaf on the ground to a tiny façade on the corner of a building to the pattern in some knitwear. Recently, I was in a bookstore in New York City and I picked up a book on Kokeshi, which are painted wooden Japanese dolls. As I flipped through the book page by page, I had a revelation. I saw gemstone-encrusted objects and I knew what I wanted to be making. Years and years of ideas popped into my head in a matter of minutes.

The two pieces of advice I would offer in terms of harnessing creativity are, don’t be afraid to daydream and trust your instincts. When we are young, we are taught not to daydream, but when you let yourself fall into those moments, you enter your own little world of memories and dreams where ideas form. It’s important to allow yourself to stay in that moment—do not jump out of the daydream to draw an idea. Stay there, play with the idea, and then put it all down on paper. Jumping from the playful mind to the analytical mind (the one that fears losing it all) is easy, but going back again is hard to do, and ideas will be lost.

Also, when an idea comes to you, trust it. Don’t worry about always playing to the market—you’ll hold yourself back. If an idea keeps you awake at night, make it.