I remember, when I was a child, my mum used to say sometimes that I was “easily led”.

What she meant by that, I think, is that I had a tendency to behave as my friends behaved, and like what they liked, and my influences were easy to identify.

I didn’t agree with her of course. To my mind I just knew what I liked, and didn’t see any reason not to embrace it wholeheartedly. And usually I found out what I liked via the people I came into contact with.

I have often thought that life is a process of first learning to be led by others, followed by the exact opposite – learning to ignore or filter other voices and influences in order to become your true self.

Becoming a maker or artist I think is a similar process. First, you see people doing stuff you like, so you start off trying to do something similar. Then gradually, you find your own methods, your own style, and your own way.

But we all still find what we like through the stuff we come into contact with.

And sometimes bits of that stuff pop up in work without intentionally putting them there.

In other words, that stuff becomes our inspirations and influences.

A while ago I had a vague idea about making a creature or series of creatures with a circus theme. The lion started it I think.

But then I sort of forgot about it.

I started making a rabbit last week because I needed some hand-sewing to take to Stitch Club and I didn’t have anything else at the right stage. (Don’t ask me why a rabbit, Easter on the horizon, maybe?)

Anyway, the circus-y thing popped up again when I was trying to decide on the rabbit’s nose. A red pom-pom happened to be to hand.

And I happened to have Smokey Robinson’s Tears of a Clown on the brain. And the rabbity nose-thing and the circus-y thing and the sad clown thing all got a bit mixed up.

And David Bowie has been all over the news, in his Ashes to Ashes-era Pierrot-clown outfit.

And also, somewhere in the back of my mind, lurked a character from a much-loved book called That Pesky Rat, by Lauren Child, that I used to read to lad: a lop-eared rabbit, who works in a circus with a Mr Hoopla.

Out of all that, Nibbles the sad clown-rabbit was born. An amalgam of snippets and influences, gathered and steeped over years and then smooshed together in my head.

I didn’t consciously put those things there. I only recognised some of them when other people mentioned them. And when I sat down to write this post.

So perhaps mum was right after all and I was, and still am, easily led.

Although I think – I hope – that these days I have developed some filters, and that the journey I am led on goes down a slightly more twisty-turny path. ♥