Catbeds and Suitcases – surprise by design

Am I writing about cat beds on Scoutie Girl today? Why yes I am.

If it’s true that creativity requires constraints, that our ideas are only able to get outside a box by first having been forced inside one, then it seems true that eco-creators are already one constraint ahead of the game, right?

True as that may be, it’s definitely as true that simply using recycled or repurposed materials isn’t going to get you any notice or notoriety as an artist, designer, or maker.

After all, any old college boy can make a table out of beer cans, but no one’s knocking down the frat house door offering to buy, photograph, enshrine, or otherwise give value to said table.

Except maybe the pledges. And only then because they have to.

What eco-friendly art and design teach us is that creativity isn’t only about constraint. It’s also about surprise. About unpredictability and unfamiliarity.

I love these repurposed and wholly reimagined suitcases-cum-catbeds by Love Nostalgic Whimsy because they add that element of surprise. They add a bit of cool to the whole get-some-vintage-materials-and-make-them-into-something-else equation. Somehow, even though they’re catbeds, and repurposed, and so very vintage, LNW has managed to create these super modern catbeds.

For me the genius is that even though all cat owners know that cats never sleep where you tell them to, because they’re cats, you kind of want to get one of these anyway. Hell, you kind of want one cats or no cats.