How pandemic sparked an artist to help kids cope
Drawing lessons grew creativity and community
In March 2020, when it became clear that San Francisco public schools would most certainly close, Wendy MacNaughton panicked alongside her friends who had kids. She felt heavy with the foreboding sense that the little ones she loved would lose their routines, their playtime with peers — at least temporarily.
MacNaughton, an artist and graphic journalist best known for her illustrations in Samin Nosrat’s bestseller “Salt Fat Acid Heat,” called her mom. “How can I help?” MacNaughton asked. Her mom suggested she teach an art class.
The night before San Francisco schools shut down, MacNaughton announced on Instagram that she’d be doing just that. She expected 100 kids to show up, maybe. Instead, 12,000 tuned in, all eager to draw a dog.
MacNaughton’s wife recorded her on an iPhone. She started each class by leading kids in a warm-up dance and listing off the places they watched from: Iran, Japan, Zimbabwe, Tampa, Fla. She spent hours each day reposting photos of children with their artwork; she wanted them to see one another, to feel part of something bigger even if they couldn’t leave their homes. This went on for several months, five days a
week.
“I wanted to provide a safe space for them to feel creative and to have fun, and to give their parents a break,” MacNaughton said. “Underneath that, I wanted to create a place where kids didn’t feel any judgment, where they felt really welcome and connected.”
MacNaughton, who named her effort DrawTogether, has a background in social work. Parents have told her that even before the pandemic, their kids had few opportunities to make art with the guidance of a trusted adult. When school budgets are slashed, dedicated art programs at public schools typically become scarce.
Nonprofits such as L.A.’s Inner-City Arts have worked to bridge this gap for decades. Since 1979, the organization has partnered with L.A. Unified schools to provide ceramics, photography, dance, visual arts and other classes to the city’s most underserved students.
When the pandemic hit, the mission of Inner-City Arts — to cultivate creativity in young people so that they may grow into confident, collaborative adults — became all the more vital.
The nonprofit moved its classes online and distributed art kits to hundreds of students. The classes offered a sense of stability during a time of uncertainty, instability and loss, said Collette Williams Alleyne, chief education officer of InnerCity Arts.
“It takes students a little longer to get going, a little longer to be inspired. Some students in the beginning of the pandemic had trouble creating,” Williams Alleyne said. “But once they got into it, it was an outlet for them, just as it’s always been.”
Research shows that participation in regular arts education can bolster selfconfidence, academic performance and coping skills in kids, as well as reduce anxiety, stress and depression. A 2014 study found that children of wounded service members who participated in arts activities could more effectively communicate with their hospitalized parents and adjusted more quickly to their new realities.
Saba Harouni Lurie, an L.A.-based art therapist, said it can take a while for children to process difficult experiences — an essential component of mental wellbeing. Like adults, kids need the time and space to feel how they feel without judgment.
“One of the ways they do it naturally is through art making and drawing,” Harouni Lurie said. “It gives them a contained place to work things out, to explore different boundaries and possibilities. And it gives them some control when life feels out of control.”
Feedback from parents that validates these benefits has motivated MacNaughton to keep DrawTogether going.
“We hear a lot from parents about the changes they’ve seen in their kids,” she said. Children who tended toward self-criticism and were afraid to make mistakes would first watch DrawTogether like a TV show. The next time, they would do the warm-up dance, scribble a bit and stop. By the end of the week, they might be drawing along with MacNaughton the whole time, and then ask to hang their artwork on the refrigerator.
“I hope that grownups can see and recognize how drawing is not just about making a nice picture — it’s
‘I wanted to provide a safe space for them to feel creative and to have fun, and to give their parents a break.’
— Wendy MacNaughton
about growing our hearts,” MacNaughton said. “It’s an opportunity for kids to work out all of the perfectionism that the world puts on them. It gives them the space to explore and imagine and to try something, and to have something unexpected happen and figure out what to do with that.”
With that mission in mind, MacNaughton is trying to expand DrawTogether’s reach.
She rented the top floor of a small theater in San Francisco and built a set with the help of local kids. She’s shot 12 episodes so far that are similar in essence to the early DrawTogether classes but with higher production quality.
MacNaughton’s latest endeavor is DrawTogether Classrooms, a partnership with schools and community-based organizations to offer comprehensive, socialemotional-centered art programming at low or no cost.
The idea came about when MacNaughton learned that many teachers were incorporating DrawTogether into their lesson plans.
“When something really resonates,” MacNaughton said, “we pay attention to it.”