"No, I don't believe this is a world at all. I think it's just a sort of in-between place."
- The Magician's Nephew
And the question that came out was:'Are there many more rooms upstairs?'
His eyes did not leave mine. 'Oh, yes, sir,' he said. 'A great many. A man can get lost. In fact, men have got lost. Sometimes, it seems to me, they go on for miles. Rooms and rooms and more rooms. '
- The Breathing Method
"Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much
larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the passage into the
loveliest garden you ever saw."
- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
The idea of doors has always fascinated me and I've had many dreams where doors open to somewhere else entirely that made no sense. It's an idea I've delighted in developing.
On the other hand I've always made things, ever since I was small I've created characters, costumes and worlds, my imagination is so fast it often runs away, completely without me at all.
Once I'd decided that the thing that would make me most happy was to make beautiful things for people to buy I came up with a bit of a problem. I kept opening shop after shop because all of a sudden I'd have a new idea, a new vision. My inspiration would change from victorian to nautical to apocalypse scifi to fantasy and back again. Trying to create a cohesive, professional shop I'd change shop, not style.
So Curious Doors was devised. With the help of lovely friends I came up with the notion of a fantasy shop that felt like behind every door was a different inspiration, a different world.
As it was so far I've concentrated on flower crowns and antler crowns. Predominantly because they use the materials I had abundantly in stock. But now it's time for me to open further doors and fall deeper down this rabbit hole.
