HOT 50: DRAWING AND MAKING

Surely the best way to generate ideas is to put pen to paper. So the alarm was raised in design when the coalition Government cut funds to arts and humanities courses last year, with drawing as a casualty in some colleges.

This scenario prompted the Hot 50 selectors to highlight activists promoting craft skills. The Sorrell Foundation’s National Art & Design Saturday Club, for example, seeks to provide Saturday drawing and making classes for teenagers of all backgrounds, while Sue Grayson Ford’s charity, The Campaign for Drawing, raises the profile of drawing as a tool for thought, cultural and social engagement through its two programmes: The Big Draw, a month-long community-led public festival held every October; and Power Drawing, a professional development programme working with schools, higher education, museums and local communities.

Elsewhere, The House of Fairy Tales, established by Deborah Curtis and Gavin Turk, is a child-centred, artist-led project which draws on an extensive multi-skilled team to create magical, parallel worlds by providing learning-directed play in the form of workshops, education packs and ’fun’. Initiatives such as these don’t replace college activities, but provide a welcome alternative for all-comers.