It is never too late to do something you love

Vivienne Lim, 70, feels that lifelong learning is all about continuously enhancing one's intellectual, emotional and social wellness with skill-upgrading activities in the company of old friends and new.

 

She has always loved creative arts and crafts and has dabbled in a wide variety of related hobbies including T-shirt painting, sketching, cross stitch, embroidery, beading, teddy bear making, decoupage, and most recently, 3D jelly art!

 

In Vivienne’s younger days, her hobbies had to take a back seat as she had a full time job in human resource management and also had to manage family responsibilities with her newly-started family. However, her interest and passion for painting was rekindled a decade ago when she retired and had more time to herself as her children had grown up and become independent.

 

"I was helping out my church for an art activity where I joined the workshop out of curiosity, since I haven’t picked up a paint brush in decades. I immediately fell in love with arts and crafts again," said Vivienne. Since then, Vivienne relied on Youtube to learn new painting techniques and improve her own skills. She learnt how to paint with acrylics on canvas through watching videos as well!

 

"When the SkillsFuture Credit scheme was launched, it spurred me to sign up for a short course under the National Silver Academy (NSA). I signed up for a Basic Portrait Sketching course with NAFA. The teacher was patient and helpful, and I enjoyed the course and the company of fellow participants very much." After completing this course, she took it a step further to sign up for the NSA Basic Watercolour technique course. This time round, she brought a friend along to join her in the course. Her friend is especially thankful that she joined the course as it helped her to improve her painting skills tremendously.

 

Not only does Vivienne encourage her friends to join NSA courses, she also motivates and registers for her 3 siblings. Vivienne’s hunger for learning and inquisitive nature can be seen from how her next move is to sign up for the Pottery course. She truly is a good role model for fellow seniors to model after!

 

** Special thanks to Ms Vivienne Lim for accepting our interview. We wish her all the best in her lifelong learning journey.

 

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