Butterflies and Petal Poetry

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Celebrating Spring is easy in Florida as the grass is growing, the flowers are blooming and everywhere there are wonderfully colored butterflies kissing the blooms and tasting their nectar.   We asked the players to write on a petal what they saw in their gardens and we got some wonderful answers including one who wished to find a basket of money in her plants!  The petals were glued together into a sort of cohesive poem about spring.  As Karen pointed out, you could start anywhere and end anywhere.  The petals always seemed to be in the right place to make the poems work!

Next we tackled painting with acrylics which we hadn’t done before.  We were joined by Terri Hightower, the Plaster Fairy, who cast 90 butterflies for us.  They were so beautiful that one man was sure they were sugar castings like his mother did when he was a boy (he’s 96 now).

  The first group was carefully wrapped in oversized t-shirts and sleeves were rolled up…we’d dealt with children so we knew what we were doing.   Were we surprised!  These players are great painters and I think I got more paint on me than anyone else!  We soon abandoned all caution except to cover the tables and let the players free! 

Even if the eyesight is failing, the hand to brush coordination is enough for most to paint their butterflies in beautiful hues and patterns. We had some lovely abstract art on the wings.  I thought we’d have to tape brushes onto fingers for those with hand problems but they were way ahead of me….they used their other hand to help guide the first and they painted wonderfully! 

So this month, it was poetry for everyman and it was more about teaching us no to be so quick to think we know what we’re doing!