These Are My People, We Come Together, Talk and Feel Alright

There were about 70 of us in the room at The Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration for the launch of The Big Draw Festival, and many of them were laughing. Then they were pensive. Clapping rippled throughout the auditorium every so often, and before we knew it, it was over and we were in the pub, carrying on, sharing stories. A night like this, together with those with whom you share a passion, can fuel you for months.

I first encountered The Big Draw back in 2003, not long after starting my illustration degree course. They’re an arts education charity founded in 2000 who champion drawing as a powerful wellbeing tool. Back then, greener than frog shit and slowly finding my feet living alone as a full-time higher education student, I went about drawing my self-portrait with ink and brush on the giant roll of paper spread out across Preston’s Harris Museum floor. David Hughes, deservedly a big name in illustration at the time, paced the room, commenting and encouraging students as we went about the brief he’d set. As he hovered over my shoulder, he asked, ‘Is your nose really that bent?’

I chuckled – being from a working-class mill town, this was my kind of humour – rough and uncompromising, and my rugby league nose was no stranger to targeted digs – before turning to look up at Hughes, who barked, ‘Fucking hell, it is!’

I loved it. I trailed around, asking him questions about his career every time he was alone, trying to impress, but above all else, I was there, in a room, surrounded by my people.

23 years on, my nose still wonkier than a Quentin Blake chocolate factory sketch, I’d been asked to chair the ‘Making Your Mark’ discussion panel, curating a conversation between designer Greg Bunbury, illustrator Joey Yu and artist Muruguiah. I jump at these opportunities to immerse myself in lively rooms, where discourse that can feel overwhelming and fractious on the internet becomes an invigorating, wholesome dip into vital community.

One of the most commonly overlooked and underestimated foundations of healthy creativity is community and connection because creativity is a shared condition. It transcends language or lazy quick takes.

Greg and I had spoken prior to the event, and we lamented the lack of ‘third spaces’ for young people to access for free, where they can look another in the eye, debate, delight and have a good old ding dong with psychological safety. On the night, we picked up this thread and agreed that it’s important that art galleries and spaces like the Quentin Blake centre do their best to reach and welcome all people at affordable prices. In the absence of third spaces in our cities, towns, and privatised rural areas, where else can people come together and unite without paying £5 for a cup of coffee?

The topics were deep, our souls laid bare, our causes sounded to the audience, and then the questions came. The one-to-one natters afterwards, the new connections and the fortifying of the old. It was beautiful, a reminder that we all need to deny excessive solitude, digital overreliance, and the ills of our time.

Days after the event, I paced my garden studio, enlivened, still holding onto the magic from Friday night. We don’t need to be connecting at all times. One burst here and there can be enough. It might be all the introverted ones can handle. But we need some of that, and it’s important to build the self-awareness to know when your collective energy bank needs a recharge. Otherwise, loneliness and overthinking can savage creativity from the inside out in our remote, conflicted age.