The Jersey City Independent"

Drawing: Emily Przybylinski

On a blustery Tuesday evening last month, photographer, musician, Jersey City Craft Mafia member, and self-described “art supply junkie” Emily Przybylinski was sitting at the bar at LITM with a locally brewed beer and a sketch book.

A few minutes later, fellow art-supply-wielding locals started trickling in for a meeting of The Jersey City Drawing Club, a new social group that’s equal parts booze, conversation, and colored pencils. Among the motley crew were a Port Authority employee, a woman looking for work in the music industry, and a participant who planned to make pictures not on a piece of paper, but on her iPhone. They decamped to a back corner of the bar, fueled up on red wine, and got down to drawing.

Przybylinski, who works in marketing for a Manhattan consulting firm and runs a vintage clothing shop on Etsy.com, started the weekly meet-up in September and says the event has been pulling in anywhere from 10 to 25 participants per session. She gave JCI the lowdown on how the Jersey City Drawing Club got started, what a typical meeting is like, and the group’s plans for future expansion.

How did you end up in charge of Jersey City’s newest — possibly only — drawing club?

I guess I have a big ego, but I think it’s because I’m a nice person! I tend to be the type of person that everybody talks to and looks to to know what’s going on. I end up throwing parties, putting on shows, and having a well-rounded group of people around all the time. Getting groups of people together is just something that comes naturally to me.

Where did the idea come from?

I took a drawing class at Hoboken High School with some friends. We had a great time in the class, and afterward we would go out together and sit and draw for an hour or two, and we kept it up after the class sessions were done. I found that that was the only time I would actually just sit and draw. If I’m at home alone, I tend to watch TV or zone out, but if I was doing it with other people I would put some discipline into it.

So about a year ago my friend JP Kosmyna and I started having drawing club in my living room. A range of people got involved, people from the Craft Mafia, random friends, friends from my job. At times there would be 15 or 20 people in my apartment. Space got a little tight, then the weather got a little bad, and it kind of died out.

Then [this past September] I was at LITM on a Tuesday with a friend. It was a really quiet night, there were maybe only three other people there, and we were all talking and having a good time, and we were like “We should come back every Tuesday night!” The bartender mentioned that the bar used to have local brewery night on Tuesdays, and that maybe they’d do something like that again. So I said, “Listen, I have this thing called drawing club. I could get a bunch of people here next Tuesday night.” The guys were kind of ribbing me, like “I don’t think you can do that!” But we were like,”We’ll see you back here next Tuesday night!” I put word out on Facebook, to people who had come in the past and anyone else who was interested. And the next week there were about 25 people here. We filled the whole back corner. It was really amazing.

What made you so sure you’d be able to get a response like that?

There’s a high concentration of people with creative skills in Jersey City. It’s not like in the suburbs, where people have cars and go off to their individual houses and are done for the night. But at the same time, there’s not as much to do as there is in New York — there’s not a million things to choose from each night. So it’s easy to get people to come out. I think people are excited about all the creative things going on in JC. When people talk about JC, that’s what they talk about. It’s an identity thing. It’s such a great community. It’s not just that people talk about doing creative things here — they’re actually doing them.

What types of people typically come out?

We have everybody from professional artists who come and get charcoal everywhere because they’re going crazy to people who just have a pencil and some paper and are drawing their roommate. I’d say it errs on the side of amateur enthusiasts. There are students, a librarian, some people in the IT industry, some people who do creative things for a living but don’t really just get to be expressive. There’s different age ranges — which is great and highly encouraged.

What do you think people tend to get out of the night?

If somebody’s new I usually hear from them: “I can’t draw, don’t judge me!” Then they sit down and usually whatever they draw is amazing in some way. And the longer someone sits and draws the better and more confident they get. It’s a different setting than taking a class, where it’s about learning how to draw. It’s more of a support group, where we just sit here and meet people and do something creative. As somebody who’s always starting projects, drawing club is a night when I know I’m going to get some drawing done, spend some quality time with friends, have some yummy beer and food, and just have a good time. There’s no homework, no prep work beforehand. It’s one of the most creative, satisfying things I have to look forward to during the week.

What types of drawing do most people focus on?

There’s a range of different types of drawing — there are people who focus on cartoon work, others who are drawing from reality, even using what’s in the room. We have done still lifes, but we tend to keep it kind of casual and free-form, unless somebody feels stuck and asks for input or help, then we’ll give out a theme or assignment. Last week we did “draw someone from your past behind the bar at LITM” [she displays a piece that resulted, featuring Cookie Monster behind the bar, toasting a cookie martini] and “draw the last person who added you on Facebook.” Some people approach it in a realist way, others do a super-cartoon version. Lots of people draw each other, which is really fun.

Any future plans for world (or neighborhood) domination?

We like meeting at LITM because it’s easy, but the group is certainly portable, so if something special is going on we can go visit other places. Knowing myself, in the future, some kind of music will be involved. We’ve talked about doing a show, and we could hold drawing club at the show. Some people have offered to model, so there will definitely be that in the future. There’s no ulterior motive of making money or getting anything out of it other than what we’re gonna get out of it. Getting more people involved and continuing to be a fun outlet for people to be creative are the only ambitious goals we have — it’s about the getting together and the doing.

The Jersey City Drawing Club meets most Tuesdays at LITM. Check the club’s Facebook page for information on future meeting dates.