DRAW TOGETHER

Local Drawing Club Fosters Connection & Creative Collaboration

by Morgan Cole

Imagine being in a room, surrounded by all types of artists, each absorbed in their creative bubble, yet connected by a shared energy and passion. It’s an experience that is as inspiring as it is uplifting.

Collaboration in art isn’t just about working side by side; it’s also about sharing experiences, challenging each other and pushing creative boundaries.

No matter how you express your creativity, relationships with other artists—painters, writers, designers, hair stylists, dancers—can inspire you and push your art in new directions.

Throughout history, artists have congregated to share ideas and learn from each other not only to help inspire their work but also to harness their creativity.

This type of shared energy can serve as a powerful tool for inspiring growth and help open your mind to create beyond your individual self, which is exactly what local artist Jarrod Goldman was looking to harness when he established a social drawing club.

Inspired by art from an early age, Goldman naturally went on to study art in college, earning his BFA in Studio Art from the University of West Florida (UWF). His work has since been showcased in both solo and group exhibitions at The Art Gallery (TAG) at UWF, End of The Line Cafe, the Pensacola Museum of Art (PMA) and more.

Today, Goldman continues to pursue art as his full-time career and serves as an active member of the local arts community. His passion for not only art, but also the local arts community is what ultimately inspired Goldman’s decision to launch Pensacola’s first and only drawing club.

Aptly named Draw Together, the club aims to provide a platform for members of the community to connect, collaborate and create.

The club hosts regular meet-ups at different venues throughout Pensacola, offering individuals of all ages and skill levels the opportunity to come together for a few hours each week to engage their creativity through a series of collaborative games and artistic exercises.

The concept for the club is primarily based around the collaborative art game Exquisite Corpse, in which participants create a collaborative drawing on a folded sheet of paper, each contributing a portion without seeing what the others have done. The sketch is then unfolded at the end, generally revealing some fun and very unexpected combinations.

Draw Together meet-ups typically kick off with a round of the Exquisite Corpse game, followed by plenty of networking and doodling time. Throughout the evening, attendees can also opt to participate in other fun artistic exercises and games with some unique creative prompts to help get their creativity flowing.

Everyone is welcome to attend Draw Together on Wednesday nights from 5 to 8 pm, which are typically held at Alga or The Handlebar in Pensacola. All ages and skill levels are welcome. There is no cost to participate, and all supplies are provided.

DTC staffers had the pleasure of attending some of the recent club meet-ups, where we sat down with Goldman to learn more about him and Pensacola’s social drawing drawing club, Draw Together.

For more on Draw Together, including updates on upcoming club meet-ups and more, follow @drawtogetherpensacola on Instagram. You can check out some of Goldman’s personal work online at jarrodreiss.com or @jarrodreiss on Instagram.

DTC: Have you always been interested in art?

JG: When I was very little, my dad would paint murals in our bedrooms and he would change them out from time to time. I had a Sesame Street one that was bonkers. Before that, it was pastel spring colors of like this cute animal parade, complete with a hot air balloon. I remember just staring at those in awe. My brother was always drawing Nikes because he wanted to be a shoe designer. He would also do Looney Tunes and fighting game mashups, put Bugs Bunny’s head on Blanka’s body, or something crazy like that. Everybody was just doodling when I was a kid, so it sort of became a natural inclination. I wanted to be a veterinarian when I was younger, but the whole art thing stuck pretty good.

DTC: What types of mediums do you work with? Is there a particular one that is your favorite or that you tend to work with more than the others?

JG: I’m a huge fan of charcoal and graphite drawing. It’s cheap, simple, versatile and not as messy as some other mediums. A lot of times I will draw like that then digitally color a drawing. Lately, I’ve been painting again and trying to sell some smaller works at an approachable price point for folks.

DTC: What inspired you to establish the drawing club?

JG: I was tired of working as an artist from home with nobody to talk about it with. I wanted to make a social club to share the joys of making art and doodling without a lot of restrictions or guidance. One day, I just started showing up at different places to draw and announcing it on Instagram, and eventually, a few people started hanging so, we decided to make it official. It’s done wonders for my creative output and mental health—just being around other like-minded peeps. I originally set out to create a social club for artists, but also for anyone even remotely curious. We try to keep it low stakes and fun for people.

I want everyone to be less afraid to draw and make marks, it’s something people sort of let die as they get older and I want people to find that again, and not be afraid to just do it. I always tell people if you can navigate yourself around a room without knocking everything over or hurting yourself, you are probably better at drawing than you think you are. I believe it is something that comes naturally to people and that it only takes a little coaxing to take it to the next level.

DTC: Do you have individuals from art and nonart backgrounds that attend the meetups?

JG: All kinds of people show up! There are a lot of artists for sure but also just whoever and their kids. It’s kind of amazing to see the diversity of the group sometimes at the meetups. The focus for me personally is to get everyone into it from the most casual observer to the full time artist and everyone in between. I try to make sure it’s casual and inviting. I hope I’m doing that part right. Lol.

DTC: Where are club meetups held, and how often are they held?

JG: We get together weekly on Wednesdays from 5 to 8 pm, unless it’s really popping. Sometimes a few of us will hang pretty late so if you work late just holler at us on Instagram or Discord and we may still be drawing. We try to rotate the meetups around Pensacola at different bars. I would like to get an even larger roster of locations in the future. This fall we have some outdoor stuff planned in parks around town. Right now, our main situationship is at Alga on 12th Avenue. Great spot, great beers and great people. They just celebrated their third anniversary and have put us up and on since the very beginning, so big ups to Alga. We’ve also had great success with The Handlebar on Tarragona Street, which is where the last few meet-ups were held. We are about to try out Odd Colony for the first time this month. It’s very interesting to see the diversity in the crowd at each location, it’s always different every place we go. The schedule is kept up to date on our Instagram, @drawtogetherpensacola and on our Discord.

DTC: Walk me through a typical club meetup and tell me about some of the different activities and art games attendees engage in?

JG: We arrive, we draw. No, but being for real we usually play this game called Exquisite Corpse. It’s a game made popular back in the surrealist days, where you fold a sheet of paper and draw a part of a body and pass it around without showing each other what your section was. It can be pretty interesting when you reveal the full drawing.

Our long time attendee and an incredible asset to the club, Noah, has developed a game called the Gallery Game we often play. For Gallery Game, there is a miniature art gallery ready to be filled with small pieces of individual art. Each player receives a small paper ‘canvas’ and a series of timed prompts. They then present their piece to the other players, explaining their selection for the given prompt. The works are then voted on by others in attendance, and the winners get to be hung up in the miniature gallery for all to see.

Beyond the games, we also have a small library of resource materials including albums of found photos, various art resources and how-to-draw-type books. We even have coloring books for the more timid or tiny attendees.

DTC: Do you feel that all types of creatives could find value or benefit from attending?

JG: I think it’s been a valuable resource for people. The meetups have become the type of social club where creatives can discuss projects and get each other work from clients, teach their skills and share their resources with other peers. It’s inspiring!

DTC: Are the club meetups also informative or educational in any way?

JG: For some of the club meet-ups, we go on field trips to a local business, complete with workshops and more of a guided plan that’s informative. Our last field trip was to a local film studio called Studio 2215 on W. Desoto St. in Pensacola. We had a live model for drawing, and local photo lab Pellucid Image Center took analog photo portraits of the attendees and did an entire workshop on light painting and developing the photos. It was a blast. The field trip before that was at Pensacola Museum of Art (PMA) for an art show by a local performance and video art group called House Pencil Green. There was a focus on art made by children where they made these small food trucks and we would race down a track and hand out prizes. The show was called Hotsy Totsy Vroom-O-Rama. I highly recommend checking it out on the PMA website at pensacolamuseum.org/art/hotsy-totsy-vrooom-o-rama.

DTC: Do you host field trips regularly?

JG: We try to do them once a quarter basically. The next big thing we have planned is a full exhibition at The Art Gallery (TAG) at UWF. We will host the regular meetups there through the show and have extra activities for some elementary students as well as everyone else. Our club has been working closely with the TAG team of interns to build a crazy good collaborative show for everyone so it should be great fun. The show has a huge focus on the Exquisite Corpse game we play. The dates for the show are October 17 through November 21, with the closing reception happening on the last day.

DTC: On average, how many people would you say attend each week, and do you have many regular attendees?

JG: We have so many regular attendees! What’s interesting to me is that some people are loyal to a certain location. We have hit record attendance in the past few months multiple times, with the largest group in the 30s. On average, anywhere from 12 to 20 people typically attend.

DTC: Is your work on display anywhere right now, or has any of your work been a part of any recent exhibitions?

JG: Nothing recently, but I would like to change that! Myself, along with some UWF art alumni and a bunch of the draw club regulars, are working hard on some long form, much larger Exquisite Corpses for the gallery show that’s coming up. It’s a fully take-home, take-your-time version of the game we play each meet-up, and I’m excited to see what everyone has come up with.

DTC: How can people learn more about the group and find out about scheduled club meet-ups?

JG: We are working on a website! Currently, we have the Instagram @drawtogetherpensacola and a Discord group chat account. The Discord is basically the adults only group as it’s hard to moderate both the Instagram and Discord, so we ask that Discord members be at least 18 years of age. Nothing incredibly racy happens or anything, it’s just easier that way. Both Discord and Insta have the calendar of events posted to them regularly, and both are easy ways to reach out to me if you have questions about anything.

DTC: Is there anything else that you’d like readers to know?

JG: Right now, we are solely subsisting on physical donations of materials, so bring us some old art supplies. It’s particularly sketchbooks and paper that we are in need of right now. If you would like to help out with supplies in another way, we do have a dedicated Venmo and an Amazon wishlist that is linked through our QR codes that we have plastered on the crates at the meetups. Really though, we just hope to see your faces so we can share and spread the joy of mark-making to you! Bring the whole family.

Draw Together Exhibition:

Don’t miss the full Draw Together exhibition October 17 through November 21 at The Art Gallery (TAG) at UWF.