The Cluster: co-working space
This illustration was commissioned at the end of 2024 by Kevin Jessup, the owner of The Cluster, Summertown, Oxford. Kevin supports local artists and he wanted a factual but fun illustration of this very interesting building to hang in the entrance area of the co-working space.
I had just completed the Inktober month-long drawing project about Oxford and initially imagined it would be similar in scope to one of those drawings, but it soon became apparent that the building and the history deserved a much bigger effort, and here is what I came up with.
The invitation to ‘see what came out of my brain’, a lot of research and plenty of scribbling on bits of paper to get the content sorted before the final inking led to this definitive depiction of the building from the Big Bang right up to the present day, with a liberal dash of imagination to go with the facts!
This is the finished illustration with the main image of the front entrance of the building and a fanciful and factual timeline of the building's history. The illustration is about 40 x 40cm
This is the main illustration of the front of the Cluster building now with added historical details.
This is the timeline which is getting enlarged and is going to be in the main meeting area of the business as well as with the main part of the illustration.
A detail of a butcher's bike with the logo of the Lindsey family butchers who own the building.
The building used to be a slaughterhouse. I drew a Berkshire pig walking past, safe in the knowledge that it is now a safe place for pigs.
Details of the entrance area which is home to Meet Point coffee. I added dinosaur footprints as there has recently been the discovery of a dinosaur super highway in the general area.
I added an imaginary blue plaque to show that Oxford Instruments operated from here in the 1960s
I added another imaginary blue plaque to commemorate the residence of The Cluster co-working space in the building.