May Blossoms!

May is my favourite month of the year. The arrival of spring (unless you live in the highest town above sea level in the North East of England, where wind, hail and snow brought the end of April).

“April showers bring May Flowers” so we should see an abundance this year!

May is also my birthday month and many of my friends’ birthdays also. With this continuing ease of Covid 19 we are all looking forward to meeting again. I am 63 which I don’t mind admitting too. With age ‘they say’ comes wisdom. I am not sure about that and often wonder who ‘they are’.

One thing I have learned in my 63 years is to do what makes you happy, spend time with people who feed your soul and encourage you in whatever path you take, without judgement. Oh and of course – regret nothing.

I was asked recently if I wished I had found my creativity earlier in my life. I pondered for a while and said that I would have only been able to put 50% of myself into my work, where now I can give it 100% of time and energy as I don’t have responsibilities, restrictions and fear of failure.

It’s been a very enlightening month and I have had a lot of requests to teach. My fear was that I would be in competition with my pupils and my work would be copied. I had a really bad issue with plagiarism early in my felting journey. I read a wonderful article which made sense. If you’re over protective about your skill then how can your skills enable you and your art to move forward?

I have talked about creating more abstract pieces of work and yet to take the plunge into an unknown world fully committed. I did dabble in my early days of needle felting and more recently with this piece called Reflections.

‘Abstract art is art that does not attempt to represent an accurate depiction of a visual reality but instead use shapes, colours, forms and gestural marks to achieve its effect’

It may be another dimension of playing with colour and textiles. So watch this space as I think I am getting ready to play a new game and pass on my knowledge to newcomers.

So my plan is to work towards full health again, and encouraging others to find art and creativity- whatever their age.