Making and Me, A Windmill Base Takeover

What led you here — to this place and to becoming the person you are today? Has creativity been part of your journey?

This summer, artists from The Peel community centre explored these questions with illustrator Grace Holliday. Together, they experimented with printing techniques while reflecting on the creative experiences that have shaped them.

Each artist created a visual ‘trail’, with symbols representing their path from past to present. Memories of places, music, nature and collections of special objects are combined with new experiences and inspiration.

Each trail tells a personal story. Here they are joined to celebrate the community the artists have found in one another. In an accompanying soundscape, they talk about what community and creativity mean to them.

The ‘Windmill Takeover - Making and Me’ showcases visual interpretations of ‘Creative Trails’ created by community artists from the local Peel community centre.

Across the month of July 2026, each community artist involved with the project collaborated with illustrator Grace Holliday during a series of mixed-media workshops to illustrate their own individual creative journeys.

The layered stories and visual commentaries that emerged from the project are captured in each individual trail poster.

What is a trail? Across this project trails have been interpreted as a series of layered symbols or visual clues. Each poster format shows these clues (objects, places, people, food etc).in a trajectory moving across the composition from then to now.

Each artist shared their own experiences of ‘what it is to be creative and to make’ through their trail, as well as being part of a collective that celebrated being in the company of creativity throughout their lives.

The visual identity of each trail was inspired by things that mattered to them. Objects or places that might appear generic, but actually reveal more about the person behind them. Being creative can be expressed in so many ways. The way we remember being creative and how we are creative now evolves and changes with us over time. This project was about looking back but also being in the present and looking towards the future with confidence and wonder. Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration has represented throughout this project and beyond a place for this creativity to live and thrive.

Collectively, this exhibition presents Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration as a destination for the community artists featured and for all who visit. A place to reflect upon creativity through time, try new things and keep exploring.

Acknowledgements

Making and Me is a partnership between Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration and The Peel, a community centre founded in 1898 for people living and working in and around Clerkenwell.