My Report on the House of Illustration
Professional Practice 2: Platform Report
The House of Illustration was set up in 2002 by an assembly of the UK’s most successful illustrators led by Sir Quentin Blake and Emma Chichester Clark. Lots of exhibitions and travelling took place allowing the House of Illustration to gain popularity and recognition throughout the country. In the month of July, 12 years later, the House of Illustration officially opened its doors to the public in its permanent home located in the heart of King’s Cross. The gallery is a registered charity and is the only UK based collection dedicated to illustration and graphics. With the aim to ‘champion, celebrate and explore illustration in all its forms’, the team run many exciting exhibitions, events and talk programmes, commission new work, and overall support new illustration talent and celebrate the old. My group and I saw reaching out to this organisation as the perfect opportunity to discover more about the illustration practice and the creative industry, how to and what it means to be a practicing illustrator in contemporary society. In the future, after researching this organisation, I might consider working collaboratively to promote illustrators’ work in a collectively passionate space.
Two members of the group made a visit to the House of Illustration to interview people that worked there, finding out information about what it is like to work there first hand using the list of questions we prepared. They asked questions and recorded the answers, with permission, on phones. We learned that it was crucial the gallery offers a balance between crowd pleasing and the cutting-edge aspect of Illustration. We realised that all work should be treated with equal respect and dignity; each piece of work is presented professionally and cohesively on a clean white frame, sometimes with a video clip of how it was made, along with great care and consideration of what work should be displayed in the first place. Then we wanted to find out how the House of Illustration funded themselves; they don’t receive public funding so they depend on admission prices and the generosity of supporters and volunteers, and they also sell prints and books in the gallery shop. This suggests that sometimes it isn’t easy to earn money in the creative industry; however, it is important to integrate with other people who share the same passion for the promotion of illustration. We looked at how to apply there, who should apply there and what the job entails; this was provided on the website. Currently, they are looking for a ‘creative, well networked, highly motivated, and organised individual to join us as our Public Programme Manager’ (houseofillustration.org.uk, 2018). They emphasise how they seek for an individual to ‘programme and run thought-provoking, innovative, surprising and challenging events that explore illustration and its wider significance’ (houseofillustration.org.uk, 2018) that would be working 15 hours a week in Kings Cross.
Before visiting and contacting the House of Illustration, our group researched a couple of illustrators that work with the institution. We noticed that one of these illustrators, Linda Kitson, actively uses Instagram to promote her new illustrations. She posts frequently and responds to comments – she even looked at our own Instagram accounts, kindly liking our posts and making comments. We found this very surprising because Kitson is in her 70s. In an interview, she points out herself how unusual it is for an elderly illustrator using modern technology – she is proud of this as are we. Evidently, she has embraced the changes of the industry – the growth in popularity of social media platforms to help promote creative work. Reinforcing the fact that illustration is dynamic and fluid and we, as illustrators, should always be flexible in our method of working or promoting as well as our drawing style. We managed to contact her on Instagram but, unfortunately, we didn’t manage to arrange an interview. However, I feel like the information I found out in our research was still valuable to the self-promotion project and our learning. We also researched information about the illustrator and curator, Sir Quentin Blake, and his association with the House of Illustration. We found he actively uses a twitter account where he promotes other peoples’ illustrations and keeps up-to-date with his fans.
Overall, from this experience, I have learned that working in the illustration industry is a lot harder than I realised. It is unpredictable and for very strong-willed, thick-skinned, confident, and passionate people. Something I must work on in my practice. It is a challenge I am willing to explore.
Bibliography
houseofillustration.org.uk. (2018). Retrieved from House of Illustration: http://www.houseofillustration.org.uk/about/work-with-us