May - Black as a magic pot - Magdalena Hohlweg

or – the wisdom of the shriveled rosehip

Spring at last. Finally this delicate green that suddenly appears everywhere, as if the world had decided to reinvent itself overnight. As soon as the sun shines reliably through the windows for a few days, you start to believe in new beginnings, in growth, in warmth – and then in the morning you find yourself freezing in front of a thin layer of hoarfrost that has covered all your springtime feelings completely unimpressed.

May is an excellent master of this kind of deceptive maneuver. During the day it entices with light and lightness, at night it sends the cold Sophie by to put a stop to overly euphoric plans. Anyone who plants too early this month or is too quickly persuaded by the first warm ray of sunshine often risks a minor botanical tragedy in the balcony box. It’s the same every year – and yet you fall into it again with astonishing reliability.

That’s exactly what this time of year is all about: May is not a month for people who like to skip a chapter. It requires patience, a close look and the willingness not to see everything as finished or final right away.

Why Cold Sophie is a good advisor

Sophia means wisdom.

At first, Cold Sophie doesn’t sound like a warm embrace. More like cold feet, poorly insulated old buildings and the need for a hot water bottle in bed. However, her name is not meant to be so frosty, but has much more to do with a very old idea of wisdom.

It does not refer to that hectic form of cleverness that constantly produces solutions and wants to optimize everything immediately. Rather, the name describes a wisdom that observes before judging and does not allow itself to be blinded by first impressions.

And why is she so “cold”, good Sophie? To be honest, when I see frozen balcony plants, I don’t immediately think of higher knowledge. At times like this, the ice saint even seems a little mischievous. But the less I get annoyed by her frosty surprises, the clearer it becomes to me that there is less deceit than consequence behind them.

Not every situation in life can be negotiated – and certainly not the weather. The year sets the rhythm and I have little choice but to go along with it. Only the garden center is likely to benefit reliably if I buy my summer planting too optimistically again, let it freeze to death and then make the same purchase again later with renewed confidence after having overcome the insult.

From works that refuse to be impressed

It would be an exaggeration to say that all my ideas are successful and that each of my works can be readily completed. Unfortunately, some works turn out to be extremely unwieldy. They simply don’t want to succeed, they lie around for weeks because they turn in a direction that I definitely wanted to avoid originally.

I used to think such phases were failures. Now I can accept a little better that some things simply need their own time – or that I simply have to give up my overly fixed ideas in order to allow something new and exciting to grow.

Some works are surprisingly similar to May: they already look promising, but still require patience, detours and trust.

The blackbird, the rose hip and the question of usability

When I go outside in May to collect finds, I rarely encounter the lush romance of spring that garden catalogs like to promise. Instead, nature often looks as if it has barely made it through a long winter. Between the first tender buds lie disheveled branches, brittle remnants of the past year and all kinds of things that have clearly already seen their best days.

And then sometimes these old rose hips still hang there.

In the fall, they were still bright red and looked freshly polished. Now they appear dull and dark, wrinkled and slightly weathered. They no longer win any beauty prizes. The blackbirds seem to see it the same way and consistently ignore these last remnants. Of course, the blackbirds must be more uncompromising than me when it comes to immediate usability.

I am fascinated by these last rose hips precisely because of their condition. They have survived frost, defied storms, held out for months and are still hanging there, far from the general ideal of beauty.

The longer I look at them, the more interesting they seem to me.

Why I am so attracted to the overlooked

The less perfect things often captivate me especially because of the traces they bear. Fresh fruit is quick to please, old fruit tells more. A scuffed shirt button on the sidewalk bears the traces of countless footsteps – formed by people who have hurried past. The shrivelled rosehips contain time, growth and decay, resistance and, despite everything, a peculiar form of dignity that is not about wanting to please.

It is precisely such found objects that later end up sporadically and carefully placed in my works – not despite their signs of use, but because of them.

I only discover a lot of things at second glance. This applies to materials as well as to works I’ve started or ideas that I almost discarded. Some things that initially seem unfinished, strange or simply unsuccessful only begin to tell their real story after a little distance.

For me, this is one of the most important lessons that May teaches me every year: Not everything shows its value immediately.

The truth about wood shavings

In my work, my gaze wanders past the big events and instead lingers on what lies next to them. On leftovers, remnants, wood shavings and seemingly insignificant fragments.

This is precisely where the real origin of a story is often hidden: its structure, color residues, location, all the properties that no longer have to play a visible role in the perfect end product.

The sanded, imposing block of wood attracts attention, but the wood shavings reveal where it comes from.

I am fascinated by the spaces in between – those seemingly meaningless areas that we carelessly pass by every day. For me, the real search begins where many things seem unfinished or inconspicuous.

Black as a magic pot

I have chosen the color black for this month. Seen without pessimism, black embodies depth and mystery for me.

Black not only swallows up light, but also certainties. That is precisely why this color makes me curious. There always seems to be something hidden beneath its surface – memories, stories, abysses or possibilities that don’t immediately reveal themselves.

Without black, there would be no clear contours, no sharpness and no glow. It is the shadow that gives the other colors their power.

Black loses some of its horror when I imagine it as a magic pot from whose depths the most colorful things can unexpectedly emerge. Not everything has to be immediately understandable or pleasing. Some things need to be discovered first.

What May reveals about life

In everyday life, of course, I still often tend to want to move forward as quickly as possible, find answers immediately and focus on what is still missing. Meanwhile, a lot of things go unnoticed that have long been there and are actually just waiting to finally be noticed.

Even in our everyday world, it seems to me that we are increasingly losing patience for nuances. Everything should be unambiguous and immediately categorizable. The clearest possible lines, the quickest possible judgments, as little contradiction as possible.

But I rarely find real depth where everything is drowned out.

More willingness to listen, more attention to the overlooked and more curiosity about perspectives that cannot be immediately categorized in simple terms – that would do us all so much good.

Because there is often something surprisingly valuable hidden in what seems bulky, uncomfortable or unfinished.

The shriveled rosehip told me about it – and about her encounter with the cold but wise Sophie.

These two Hagebuttlings have already found their home – as convincing representatives of their (my) kind. If you also like these character heads, you can take a look at my currently available works: Handpicked.

What I really got to grips with this month

Nature invites me to combine, to try, to allow the unexpected – and to pick up the overlooked. If you are curious to see what else has emerged, you can find more works here. There is probably also something here that doesn’t look appealing at first – and doesn’t let go the second time around.

Like these two here – no longer crisp and fresh and not immediately appealing