Trust me!
I've just wrapped up what I think might be the most fulfilling project – on a human level – that I've ever worked on.
Three years ago, Simon Dixon introduced me to Héctor Ayuso, founder of OFFF Festival, and a man who lives for creativity. Héctor booked me to speak at OFFF 2023, and we've since become good friends through our shared love of creativity.
We've spent the last few months working together to tell his story by writing and illustrating a book for 'Paradiso', (https://paradisofest.com/) Héctor's new creative retreat/festival. 'The Reason You're Doing It' called upon all the skills and personality traits I love to bring together. This is not easy: getting enough paid work to survive in the commercial world requires people who trust the underlying creativity and my ability to sell it when the blurring of disciplinary lines often causes fear. Below is what I wrote about this in the book.
I can't wait to share it with you all in late March at Paradiso!
"Artists are complex creatures. Aliens on our own planet; revered and rejected in equal measure. In a world increasingly transfixed by data, to choose this curiosity-led life is to face resistance. Distilling a multifaceted, ever-evolving practice down to something that will convince another to pay you to do it can be challenging. Reaching those who look past job titles to see the nature of the creativity, to enable the human is vital.
In 2023, I wrote a short story about an artist suffering a meltdown, chaining himself to a lamppost with his dog’s leash on a Tuesday afternoon as a tiny suburban cry for help. I wrote it for Héctor Ayuso in his penultimate year at OFFF Festival. He loved the story and the illustrations I made to support it. This was enough for him to entrust me to tell his life story. This is Héctor’s way. The reason he’s doing it. While I write, make art, and share the stories of others to promote creativity, I knew that under all of my endeavours was the joy of human connection. That’s what bound he and I. Why I’m doing it. During the first of six sessions together, Héctor in Barcelona, I in Salisbury, I asked him how the f*ck he held it together during those early years of OFFF Festival, carrying all that debt. He said “It’s the reason you’re doing it.” The call was being recorded, but I snatched up the nearest pen and scrawled it down. Something about this comment just screamed at me. After the call I took a photo of this scruffy lettering and sent it to him, to see if I’d been onto something with this instinctive siren. Two hours later he replied and told me to check my Instagram. There, tattooed on the back of his neck, red raw, is that scribbled note. I knew then that he too was an alien. So, I’ll dedicate this thing to him, all those he’s helped along the way, and the reason they’re doing it."