YogaTeds

“The day after I handed in my dissertation I walked into my first Yoga class...
Once qualified, I turned into an apostle for the benefits of Yoga, enthusiastically lobbying everyone I knew to take it up, either with me or with a teacher who suited them better, geographically or attitudinally. One person I was careful with was my mother, Beryl. As an artist, she was spending far too much time sitting still drawing and painting, without getting enough exercise (in my view) and I was concerned that she might grind to a complete physical halt if she didn’t get out and about a bit.... My mother was trained as an art teacher, but then spent the rest of her teaching career working with seven to eight year olds in the North East of England. As well as reading and writing, she taught them all to draw. When she retired, Beryl finally had time to spend on her own work, painting watercolour landscapes and illustrating children’s stories for her three grandsons, my nephews. When my sister and I were young, our mother would make up stories about my teddy bear to keep us quiet on car journeys. But she was far too busy looking after us and with her job to write them down and paint the pictures. Her second career as an artist took off once we had left home and she had her time to herself...
At the annual IYA(UK) convention I found myself eating at the same table as a group of north-east based teachers, including Trish James, and I was delighted to discover that she runs classes at my home town’s community centre. Trish told me about her classes, that she had everyone from qualified and trainee teachers to 80 year olds taking part. I knew that Trish, as a senior Iyengar teacher, would look after my mum’s needs.
Typically, once Beryl joined Trish’s classes, she started to draw her Yoga class in the style that she had originally developed for her children’s stories, with bears in place of people. She had already painted a collection of scenes including Newcastle Central Station, the Great North Run, and Washington Wildfowl Park. When she started on her big Yoga picture, she sent the sketches through to me for technical advice. We all remember how hard it was, when we first started Yoga, to remember the postures once we got home and tried them for ourselves. It’s almost impossible to recall which way your feet should point.
My mother had her local printer produce a small batch of cards. She took them to her class where her fellow students snapped them up. Trish showed them to students at her other classes, sold out and came back for more. By this time, the project my mother and I had been working on together had ended, so we set out to illustrate a number of asanas with a view to putting together a complete collection of all the poses in ‘Light on Yoga’ - eventually. I say ‘we’ but it was really Beryl doing the work. She would sketch a YogaTed in a posture, fax it to me to make sure the bear was aligning and extending his furry little body correctly, then make the corrections before completing it in watercolours.
We now use a Lake District based printers who produce high quality artists’ cards. I’m sure it’s possible to get them produced more cheaply but for us it’s important to manufacture ethically in the UK to keep the carbon footprint low. We’re happy to sell the cards at a reasonable price to cover our costs...”

The article is written by Sarah McCartney, and tells the story of how YogaTeds came to be created, and describes the range of prints, message cards and postcards available. Images on this page © copyright Beryl McCartney.