Exclusive: New Web Series Spotlights Jonathan Adler's Irreverent Inspiration Sources

Photo: AOL

Jonathan Adler—the multitasking designer, potter, author, and husband to Simon Doonan—keeps it simple when it comes to his work. His company motto is: "If your heirs won't fight over it, we won't make it." But how does he stay constantly inspired? Adler has teamed with AOL on a new weekly web series, "Inspiration Point," which aims to pull back the curtains on just that. The first episode debuted today; here, Adler shares how something as unlikely as a Ke$ha song can influence one of his pieces.
Why did you decide to do this series?
My entire career—which started with my pottery teacher in college telling me I didn’t have what takes to be a potter—has been an improbable adventure. I wanted to show people what can happen when you have a naysayer to rebel against.
What can readers expect from it?
You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and—hopefully—you’ll see how to channel your ideas into one place to create something that makes you happy. The series follows the journey from inspiration—which can be an amazing Brâncuși sculpture or the color of my Norwich Terrier, Liberace, or some Ke$ha lyrics—to an actual product. My job is to take all my ideas and bring them together in one world. My inspiration is to make cool shit.
What are the highlights of the series?
I wish I could say it was seeing how impossibly young and thin I am, but I think the highlights will be the unlikely inspiration points that are much more surprising than I am and the locations, which are much more fabulous.
Walk us through the next episode?
When I was 26, I decided that I was going to make exactly what I wanted to make with no thought about selling it. I was an outlier, and it was a creative place to be. The next episode will explore this idea of being a fringe-y outlier, how it still inspires me today, and how the idea translates to my work. I work hard to inject wit and levity into chic, so there will hopefully be some laughs along the way too. I believe everything should be irreverent.