By Cora Secore

On July 29th, at The DRAW Gallery, I interviewed Chris O’Neal who works as the Outreach & Communications Manager of MKAD. He is also the person that I work directly under, so I largely owe my developed writing and communications discipline to him. This interview had a distinct personal motivation, in that I had a lot to learn from what Chris does and creates more specifically and thoughtfully. Chris’s position entails “helping to get the word out to our community about all of the amazing things we do here.”

I asked Chris what his favorite part of the job was. “I love what we do here at MKAD,” Chris told me, “How we serve our community. I am excited to share that with folks to help everyone learn about these amazing opportunities that we’re a part of.”

I pressed Chris to see if he had a particularly special moment during his time here he could share. At the time of the interview, DRAW-A-THON preparation work was all around us, which he directly referenced. “I mean, just looking around me at the preparation for the upcoming DRAW-A-THON is very exciting. Seeing our Youth Workforce putting all of this together and the excitement at how it is all going to come together is really inspiring for me to see.”

I pointed out how the DRAW-A-THON had developed a legacy, this being its 6th annual year. “Yeah, it’s going strong,” Chris added, “And it keeps so many of the aspects that makes it amazing for our community and our organization, and it also continues to expand and grow and bring in new ideas and new people and connections. It’s just great to see.

“I think it’s really a showcase for what we do, specifically here at The DRAW. MKAD consists of three main programs: the Neighborhood Print Studio, the Youth Workforce which is putting the DRAW-A-THON together, and The DRAW, which is where our arts education happens and where the DRAW-A-THON goes down.”

Chris has taught a Visual Storytelling class for several years now with middle school youth, teaching them about story structure and the process of creating a comic. “We learn how to make a comic book, and then they make a comic book,” Chris explained, “We go through the steps of writing, storyboarding, and then all of the production steps. Finally, we put all of the comics together into a printed anthology collection that they take home copies of, and we also have for sale at the World’s End comic book shop in uptown Kingston.

“They love it, and it’s also an opportunity for them to connect with each other and have a fun place to express all the stuff they can’t really get out at school or at home. It’s an amazing aspect of The DRAW, that we can be this third space for all kinds of people, including occasionally very rowdy middle-schoolers.”

I asked Chris what his favorite part of working with kids was, to which he gave a response rife with sarcastic endearment. “Well, they’re lowkey tough. They don’t think I’m unc or washed. I learn all the cool slang. At that age though,” Chris continued with more sincerity, “They’re at a point in their lives where they are still deciding how their lives are gonna go. Not that people’s lives can’t change at any point. But really, at that age they can go in all kinds of different directions, and by being there for them at that time and giving this guidance, I feel like it is extra helpful to, if that’s [making comics] what they’re potentially inclined to do, help guide them in that direction.

“Around that time, at that age, it’s when a lot of people stop pursuing the arts. It’s an opportunity to nurture that and keep them invested in it. Also, just the fact that they’ll have their finished work in print is really valuable. They can look to that and point to that like, ‘This is what I did, I made this,’ and that’s super valuable for them to see. I have several repeat students as well, and you can really see the progress they’re making, even in their art from just a year ago to what they’re making now. It’s amazing to see how far they can come.”

I wanted to know much more about Chris’s creative practice as an artist. I knew he was a comic artist which is why he took to teaching Visual Storytelling, and more details would be valuable. “I make comic books myself. A mix of self-published with smaller, independent publishers and a variety of different themes and styles. Comics for me, and as I’ve found for the class in general, take a long time to make. [Chris laughs] It’s something that can be read very quickly, but the process of putting it together is very time consuming, so I generally focus on short stories. I would love to be able to tell these longer epic tales, but the bandwidth of time and resources means most of my stories are shorter.

“One I have coming up that I’m very excited about is a colorized, expanded edition of my comic The Burning of Kingston, which tells the true story about the burning of Kingston and that’ll be out just in time for the 250th anniversary celebration of the burning of Kingston, which is happening in October. We’ll have it all over but there’s gonna be an event at Rough Draft. Stay tuned.”

I asked Chris if he likes bouncing around between different genres. “I do,” He replied, “Initially, when I got back into making comics, it was difficult to write and tell a story. But as I focused more on that in my teaching, I’ve also accumulated more and more ideas that I would like to share. Having the ability to get that out in a short comic format has been really fun and rewarding.”

I confirmed with Chris that comic-making is a time-consuming discipline, and so I thought that it’d be valuable to know where the process begins. “With the ideas,” Chris explained, “I will generally have an idea for a story, maybe an image, and go from there. In the comic classes I teach, there’s a bit of a worksheet that I use to help the students organize their ideas for a story that I also find very helpful to do, and so once I have a general idea, I will try to use my own worksheet to finagle that. I also try to keep an ongoing journal of ideas as they pop up in a Google doc, so I can come back and sort through those to see what works.”

Chris’s personal definition of an artist, after some contemplating, came as follows: “An artist is someone who is attempting to share something that can only be expressed through art. And art is something that exists only to share something that can’t be expressed any other way.”

After that, I asked Chris about his relationship with the community here in Kingston. “Well I’ve lived here for about a decade and worked here and spent most of my time here in midtown Kingston. I’ve come to really love this community and all the many aspects it has. I hope to stay here for a very long time to come.

“I was just able to walk to the corner to JJ Eva Spice and get a nice tasty beef patty, and I could walk just a little bit further out and get a little bit more into nature. Or I could go to any number of fun establishments and meet up with friends, new and old. Or get groceries, or look at the architecture. There’s many things here that I find exciting.

“It is [dense] but it’s not overwhelming. Especially as someone who lived in New York City for a couple decades, there’s excitement and variety in Kingston but it’s not overwhelming, and there are opportunities to catch your breath and form real connections that you don’t get in a big huge city like New York. In a bigger city it’s easier to be anonymous. Who knows, in a more interconnected community people are gonna get to know you a bit better and you’re gonna know them. I think it generally helps the cream rise to the top, as Randy Savage would say.”

I asked Chris more specifically about how his relationship to the community changed once he became associated with MKAD. “It gave me a real stake in things,” He said, “I certainly felt connected to my community before MKAD, but having an actual investment in things that are happening all the time. Y’know MKAD is doing so many things all the time that are so exciting and I can be a part of that. I feel totally plugged in now.”

Chris O’Neal emphasized again and again how exciting and worthwhile the projects and classes that MKAD organizes really are, giving me a much better understanding of his motivations and values. He wants everyone here to feel the same level of connectedness that he does through MKAD. Chris’s roles here are thus an excellent fit. You can check out his website, chrisoneal.com or find him on Instagram @chris0neal to keep up with and learn about Chris’s work.