A word from Rach and Sarah
Many of you know Meg as our Marketing wizard, but over the years she’s worn many Art with Heart hats from associate producer and workshop facilitator to marketing manager. She’s helped to build our brand, deliver catchy campaigns for plays and projects and find accessible and meaningful ways for us to engage with you, our Art with Heart community.
A steady hand whenever things got a little chaotic, Meg was the cool head in the room, part problem solver, part sounding board, part “it’s fine, we’ve got this.” Meg’s been there through the challenges, helping to steady the ship and support us, and she’s also been at the heart of so many of our successes. Art with Heart simply wouldn’t be where it is today without her.
We’ll be sharing more words about Meg, but for now, we’ll leave you with hers. We wish Meg good luck and can’t wait to watch her fly with her company Pen & Think.
Thank you for everything, Meg (the Sue to our Sooty and Sweep)
Learning with Art with Heart – a Meg journey
I remember walking in to meet Art with Heart for the first time, newly out as queer, not long after my mum passed away. I was met with bright ideas, brilliance, laughter and my first look at what it might be like to be LGBTQIA+ and proud of it. Rebranding Art with Heart was one of the first projects I led on my own as an account manager at an advertising agency, and by lunch time on the first day, we were taking photos pretending to be Power Rangers. Art with Heart is special like that: knocking you out with an astute awareness of what’s needed in arts and culture with one hand, and calling you Red Ranger with the other. What more could you need?
In the last decade, I’ve been their associate producer, marketing manager, friend, Sue, and I continue to believe they’re the best of the best in arts and culture. Want to know how we get through the tough stuff? Art with Heart has the answers – constantly bringing people together in a way that’s authentic and creates great work.
I’m now getting off to focus more on my freelance work as a brand strategist and my writing. I’m writing brand narrative for boroughs, delivering behaviour campaigns for the NHS, and restructuring marketing departments, and I wouldn’t be here, working on things as aligned with my character, if it wasn’t for Rach, Sarah and everything we’ve shared. It feels strange to be on my way (though I’ll still be nearby!) – so I wanted to share my biggest learnings:
My biggest learnings
1. Having loads of different friends is mint
My first job as associate producer for Art with Heart was to ring through a list of people over 65 and ask if they’d like to be part of our phone project, Dial. It was the beginning of the pandemic and a weird time, where ringing a bunch of new people when not being able to see my current people felt really bizarre. But I did it, and I met some of the loveliest delights – a highlight being an hour-long call with Pauline, who I still occasionally chat with to this day. Suddenly, my demographic of friends (within the boundaries of participant and producer, don’t worry) of over 65 tripled, and it was the best.
Every project since has been a bit like that. I suddenly have this ensemble of unlikely friends who have lived walks of life so different to mine, and whose input into my life – whether it was a ten-minute conversation in 2020, or a delighted ‘bump into each other’ this year – is just massive. Speaking to people different from yourself is the best, and a skill I hope to carry always.
2. You can be great at your job and still be a nice person
I come from an industry where it’s kind of assumed that as you progress, you have to be less of a nice person to be top of your game. I’m glad that learning was undone quickly. Rach and Sarah are great at just being themselves, listening to you, being decent people – no matter who you are. And being nice? It’s encouraged. For the first time, I felt like the soft, lovely side of me was allowed to flourish – not just the business part of myself. It’s an important thing to carry, particularly in the arts, where it can be easy to lose our softness and end up with all sharp corners. Being who I am is something I celebrate because I spent years celebrating it with some of my favourite people.
3. Access is allowed
Developing access riders with Rach and Sarah remains one of the proudest moments of my career. It made me realise that it’s not that hard to make adjustments for people, and I was quick to agree with Art with Heart that often it’s society that makes life inaccessible for us.
Suffering with long covid from 2020 really changed my working needs, and through Art with Heart, I learnt the language of access. It wasn’t a bother to say, ‘Can I have a break if a meeting is more than an hour?’ or to ask to adjust tasks based on energy. That attitude is extended to anyone who works with Art with Heart and they were one of the first organisations I experienced offering access accommodations, and remain one of the best.
4. Be brave
Over the last decade, marketing has really changed, becoming a job that involves crisis management, whether it’s directly affiliated with you or not. Since working with Art with Heart, we’ve come up against many moments where we’ve had to ask do we contribute our voices to this. Palestine, the erosion of trans rights, black lives matter. Of course, at every intersection we’ve said yes – but what’s struck me the most is that Art with Heart are brave enough to make statements even when everyone else is still silent or toeing the line. Decisions never come quickly – there’s always consideration, research and discussion put into posts like this, and it’s been a great example of how to speak and encourage action in a challenging time.
5. Arts organisations are allowed good branding
I’m so proud of Art with Heart’s brand. First developed with my pal Daniel Thompson ten years ago and then revived by Noe Baba at the beginning of the pandemic, I think it’s expressive, vibrant and does what it says on the tin. I love working on brands that have legs and where the priority is meeting people on their level, and Art with Heart is always going to have pride of place in my career. Like, how mint are their comms? Their projects are high impact, merch is banging, and you’d never know it’s two brilliant, hardworking people knocking all that out of the park. None of us blows our own trumpets a lot, so this is me giving a massive goodbye serenade.
Thanks to everyone I’ve crossed paths with during my time at Art with Heart, you’ve all shaped me into a version of Meg I’m really proud of.
Keep in touch with Meg
Please do stay in touch (you can follow me @pen_andthink or @miggysworld on Insta, @miggysworld on Substack, or add me on LinkedIn if you’re that way inclined).
Lots of love to all your faces, and especially Rach and Sarah’s.
Donations
We are Art with Heart, and we want to bring together as many people as possible to unlock their creativity and connection to each other. As a registered charity (1205611), donations make it possible to deliver accessible, representative and inclusive projects, to engage more people, employ more freelancers and plan further into the future. Together, we are building Art with Heart, we would love you to join us! CLICK HERE to donate through our Ko-fi campaign.