The Wrong, The Weird And The Wonderful: Yan Elliott's Creative Inspirations

Sizewell Beach

Along the Suffolk coast is Sizewell beach. It’s nothing new to find inspiration from the beach but this one comes with a difference. Look one way and you look out to sea. Turn around and you find yourself staring at a nuclear power station.

It’s Bizarre. An intrusion. But what I love about it is that it plays havoc with convention. It asks questions about the classic beach experience. With other, more traditional beaches available up the Suffolk coast I am always drawn to Sizewell. Just to be reminded how the wrong can bring the magic.

Farrah Fawcett Heads

I have a habit of collecting things that intrigue or fascinate me. Here we have ‘The Many Moods of Farrah Fawcett’, made from the original 1977 Farrah Fawcett Majors Fashion Doll heads. It says on the box; ‘Ready to hang on the wall’. Arghh! No thanks!

Don’t you just love them? No? You surprise me. Are they grotesque? Are they brilliant? For me, they are brilliantly grotesque.

They remind me that people are extraordinary beings. We don’t necessarily like the straightforward and often we like things that are anything but.

So, in a world of ‘The same’, my ‘treasured’ Farrah Fawcett heads restore my faith that there is demand for different. They act as a great reminder that in the odd and the weird, we can find the wonderful.

Dad

My father, an army man all his life and therefore used to taking orders, found himself in a meeting. The Brigadier looked up at him and said, “We need someone to write the history of the Regiment”. My Dad looked the Brigadier in the eye and without blinking said, “Will do”. The rest is literally history. He set to it and ten years later it was done. Not one volume but two. This kind of resilience and work ethic is not only extraordinary but awesomely inspiring. Well done, Dad. ‘At ease’. X.

Yan Elliott is CCO at The Weber Shandwick Collective