The Dragon's Words

Lucy Bell
Nov 20, 2019
2 min read

For years of my life I thought there were certain ways of doing things and that was that.

I remember my mum running the bath and swishing the water around, I remember thinking I had to learn to do that when I was older. Obviously when I grew up I realised that I didn’t but it took me until the age of 45 to realise it was ok to be different in every thing I do, from art to editing even to being a mother.

I had fantastic art teacher called Gail. She ran an art course I went to for over 10 years. I learnt so much about everything: techniques, different mediums, composition, how to see colours and pattern, shadows and light, but it’s only been on my own artistic journey since Gail very sadly died that I have realised to be truly creative is to leave behind what you think you should do, and not to worry about how things should be done, but to do things my own way, and also it’s ok not to please everyone.

I had this epiphany with my editing about 9 months ago. I had heard Theo Paphitis from Dragons’ Den saying that he was dyslexic and he would always get to the end point in his own way, often by what would seem like a longer more complicated route. Never have I heard something that struck such a cord with me.this was me, this man was saying it was ok to do things my way. I could break the rules and still achieve the same goal.

If only I had known this when I was younger. I feel I have wasted a hell of a lot of my life trying to do things the way I thought they should be done, the way I was told I should do it rather than having faith that my way was ok and sometimes may be better.

if I could talk to my younger self I would say, don’t try to conform in how you do something, this will ultimately lead to failure, frustration and low self esteem. Have confidence that you know you can achieve it in your own way, a way which you don’t need to justify and you don’t apologise for.

Come and see my Seabell Artisan exhibition at Monkton Arts in Ryde and watch my latest advert here: