There is a large floor vase at my parents' house. The vase itself is nothing special. I have seen it hundreds of times but would not be able to tell you what exactly it looks like, other than it is beige. The vase does exactly what it was meant to do for my parents' living room - it blends into the wallpaper. This vase was specifically chosen to play a supporting role to a flower arrangement.
Actually, it would be a stretch to call it a flower arrangement, since it is made of twigs and dried weeds that my parents collected themselves. It is constantly changing as old twigs get frail and break and new ones get picked up during walks in the park. It is in the "please touch" section, as is practically everything in that living room. My kids sure do appreciate the "please touch" rule and love to rearrange the contents of the vase from time to time, undoubtedly contributing to its turbulent life cycle.
A long time ago I took a close-up picture of a dried thistle in that flower arrangement and it remained one of my favorite close-ups since. There is something magical in the insane and almost infinite geometry of that thistle bloom.
Recently I made a night light, and as I was photographing it, it reminded me of that thistle. The concentric lines in the agate slice in the night light evoked the image of the thistle, and the glass nuggets resembled the round pods behind it. And the color scheme matched pretty closely - don't you think?
I can't really say that the picture of that thistle became an inspiration for the night light, but who knows - I have been looking at it and liking it for way too long…