Scraggy Moo is having LightHeARTed Fun!
Marie Hegarty • September 3, 2019
Dream It, Live It, Do It!
After seeing so many little “signs” in my everyday life to simply “have a go” I have finally set up my own creative business.
From coming across old diaries from 7 years ago with the same dream in mind, reading magazine articles asking "If it's not now, when?" Things like this really inspire me. I feel whatever adventure you go on, it might not be forever, but you have lived the life you wanted to and had fun along the way! Fear of failing could have stopped me from even trying but I think the biggest failing is never having a go at all.
I wanted to share my love of art with people along with the message to have fun in life. Over the years I have facilitated so many workshops for adults and they have said how they had stopped drawing, painting or doing art when they were young as they were told they were not good enough, teachers screwed their work up at college or were subjective to their unique style. Scraggy Moo is about letting go of your inner creativity and enjoying the process of art. It doesn’t have to look perfect to anyone else but you! You don’t have to be “good” at something for it to be good for you!
This weekend I launched and celebrated my own identity as an artist and a community arts facilitator at the Festival of Music and Flowers at Markeaton Park in Derby. The sun was shining bright throughout the Bank Holiday weekend and music filled the air. Lots of children and their families came to rest inside of the gazebo in the shade to create arts and crafts hand in hand. It was such a lovely, cosy experience underneath a gazebo canopy decorated in homemade tassel bunting and surrounded by mixed media art materials that created a cloud of wonder.
Children made kazoos and musical rise shakers to cheer on the local musicians who played in the craft village and inside of the walled garden. With the funky, paint like Chalkola pens children drew on records and white tiles to celebrate the festival, created woodland wall hangings with felt trees and animals and covered the foam shaped flowers and butterflies on sticks with sequins, sparkles and stickers, (not forgetting the sparkly crowns!)
We had so much LightHeARTed Fun that I will be back at Markeaton Park for their Christmas Festivities and for next year’s festival.
Follow your heart. I dare you to! Tomorrow is promised to nobody.
Dream It, Live It, Do It!
Working from home was something I had just started to practice and adapt to as a freelance artist in 2019. My other place of work is the 6x4 art shed at the bottom of the garden. It used to be a storage shed then one day I decided to pull everything out and only put back creative resources, a desk and chair once I had painted the walls, floor and ceiling lots of vibrant colours from teal, blue, purple and orange. Not forgetting the windchimes outside singing in the tree, plaques, pom poms, bunting and dream catchers!!! I love to escape into the art shed when the weather is a little warmer. To daydream, watch the butterflies and bees dance on the buddleia bush and to listen to the birds chirping birdsong as Louie the cat finds a cool, shady spot on the grass. After the Summer in 2020 and in response to the pandemic having a significant impact on being able to facilitate creative workshops in the community, I decided to create a studio space in the spare room at home. A space where I could enjoy creating art for leisure, commissions and hosting virtual sessions, demonstrations and parties online for adults and for children and their families. The initial Facebook Live sessions, YouTube videos and Zoom sessions began taking place in March 2020 and continue to be enjoyed today when we are in a national lockdown, self shielding or in quarantine. Although the government announcements have restricted the movement of people to prevent the spread of Covid-19 to help protect the NHS we are not restricted in our creative movement at home. Workshops and creative connections may have to be reduced, rescheduled or cancelled for now in the community, in a physical sense, but our creative spirit can be shared through the power of technology. My desire to reach out and connect is not cancelled. If you would like to have a personal session with friends and family or as a community group please ping me an email and we can bounce ideas off one another! We can not control the direction of the wind but we can control our sails. It takes time to readjust to such big changes in life when it can impact on our worlds inside out, but the world never stops spinning, so we can keep going too! Stay safe and creative everyone!
