We recently received news about the 2019 The Big Draw Festival – the popular annual celebration of drawing – which takes place later this year, from October 1-31. This year the theme Drawn To Life focuses on the vital role of creativity for health and wellbeing, a theme that resonates with everyone involved with The Artist, and I’m sure with readers, too. Fittingly, one of this year’s The Big Draw ambassadors is artist and mental health advocate Liz Atkin, for whom drawing has helped her struggle with anxiety and dermatillomania. I have to admit that I had never heard of this psychological condition before, even though it is thought to affect one in 25 people. Symptoms include compulsively scratching or digging into the skin in an attempt to improve perceived imperfections, often resulting in tissue damage, discolouration, or scarring, and significant distress.
For Liz Atkin the disorder became a private vicious cycle that dominated her life. Her road to recovery began only after signing up for a Masters in Dance course, and later through drawing, which she describes as one of her greatest tools for recovery. She began to carry a small piece of charcoal in her pocket, so she could draw wherever she went. In 2015 she began a series of charcoal drawings entitled Compulsive Charcoal, following a period of chronic anxiety, when she realised that drawing rapidly on her commute to work helped to control her panic attacks. This became a daily activity for her, including sketching on discarded newspapers left on the seat beside her, and giving the sketches away to intrigued passengers.