Our Poster Artist for 2025 is our wonderful community member, Becky Salter, here are some words from the artist herself about the artwork:

“For many years in the early 2000s I would draw posters for our festivities, but it’s a little bit exciting to get to play at being a ‘real artist’ and honing the design over two festivals with the encouragement and support of the society. It feels a great honour and privilege.

My designs pull heavily on my own personal experiences of the festivals, of moments seared into my minds eye and desperate to come through in my work. I wanted to capture some of the iconic visuals of moments on the hill that remain consistently powerful, that hold true year on year and that anyone who has ever attended will recognise as those which embody the atmosphere and anticipation in the first spark, first drum beat and first powerful ritualised movements of the night. The poster I wanted to give was one that both places the May Queen and Green Man as focal characters of our story but with the community and all its many characters, colours and visuals somehow interwoven into our deities- such as we all build and feed this spectacle. The decoration of colourful dancing bodies in the May Queen’s raised mantle of skirts features our wider community. I wanted to combine the warm and intense glow of the beltane fires with the cooler tones of fertile young growth that the union of the two characters in the foreground result in; hence the Green Man stands amongst the vegetation, a representation of his burgeoning potential and the fecundity of Spring/Summer. He holds in his hands a rack of shed antlers to represent the necessary journey to humility, inspiration and readiness that he must embark on to join the May Queen at the end of the night and to emerge through his ordeals transformed into a new image of himself as her consort, compliment and balance. His is often a journey of sacrifice and of dissolution of ego, hence looking down to what doesn’t serve him anymore. Antlers also have a symbolism or association with sovereignty, which denotes his readiness to take up the new mantle/crown. Through all of this, she resides consistently shining and radiant against the dark backdrop of the Beltane night, serenity and knowing seated within her.

…Or at least that was the plan. I want all to take from it what speaks to them and interpret how they will. I am excited to witness these moments made real just shy of a month away!! See you on the hill!” 

💙

Members will be able to buy souvenir copies of the poster from BFS after the festival, and Becky also plans to sell high quality prints of her artwork with the event text removed from the bottom.