INSPIRATION 3: Donna Wilson's Creatures

The life of kids is not all pink elephants and fluffy rabbits. That is one of the reasons why Donna Wilson’s Creatures are so great. She started making long legged dolls made out of recycled sweaters while studying Mixed Media Textiles at The Royal College of Art in London. After graduation she started thinking about ways to make more unconventional dolls. She was inspired by the way children draw. Two, three or six eyes, three legs, four arms; it doesn't matter to them if things are ‘correct’, like they are in real life. Donna Wilson used this spontaneity and freedom to design knitted creatures, each with their own peculiar character, like Edd Red Head, Angry Ginger and Peggy Long Legs. They are all made by hand, knitting the panels on a domestic knitting machine out of soft lambswool, which is felted, cut and sewn into shapes and then hand-embroidered and stuffed.

For us, both graduated in Fine Arts at The Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, it is very inspiring to see how an artist built a successful business while still staying true to herself. She created a strange colourful imaginative world, in which imperfectness, fear and anger, are just as present as adventure, sweetness and happiness. How children try to relate to the world is much more complex then we sometimes might think; it includes all sorts of monsters. With her Creatures Donna Wilson gives a beautiful expression to the inner life of children.