The band's back together

albeit briefly - and they're doing really well, actually.

A few days ago I went to New York City to say ‘goodbye’ to Fran, who was my stateside agent for over a decade - and ‘hello’ to her own memorial chair that will reside forever in Bryant Park, where she would sit in the sun outside the office at lunchtimes. The little gathering felt very special, friends and colleagues from way back and more recent years brought together by the Venn Diagram of Fran - the Frann Diagram, if you like.

Fran, and our decision to live in the creative sphere, were the reasons we found ourselves together in the same windy spot at 10am on a Spring-like Friday. I hadn’t been to Manhattan in over 5 years, the last visit being for a late-2019 wedding, some work meetings and connecting with friends. Of course the terms ‘friend’ and ‘colleague’ become interchangeable after so many years in the industry (over 30 for me now) and our years-long habit of visiting NYC at least once a year, established once I’d signed with my agency there in 2007, had been interrupted by the pandemic. So we hadn’t been back since.

As a teen raised on John Hughes movies and the Brat Pack, NYC was where I wanted to live and work, and the city felt like a second home from the moment we first visited in 2002, supporting a friend at her first stateside show at the Jacob K. Javits. The feeling was compounded after we put on a major solo show there, occupying the entire empty ground floor space of what is now the Chelsea Market Food Hall - having negotiated a mere $4000 for all that space for 8 days, something that would be impossible now (here’s why). We were free to do whatever we wanted with the walls, the floor, the ceiling. The show itself required multiple inputs from and liaisons with Manhattan-based friends, local tradesmen and stores, the recording artist whose work was the inspiration for the show - and who opened it with two live performances - and even the security guard who become pivotal to the show’s smooth running. In the space of almost three weeks based on the LES, we felt we’d taken root, and the feeling never left. A month later, I’d moved the show to Providence, and signed with Fran and her team headed by Louisa, and ever since I’ve lived my dream of ‘working in New York’ - just not while living there. Funny how you often get what you want, but not in the way you thought you would.

Forwarding to now, and I was very curious about what I’d find on this trip. I was landing in the middle of all this *waves arms in the general direction of politics*, set against the backdrop of financial uncertainty, the skyrocketing costs of existing, the threat of AI, and an industry which has been demonstrably impacted by the tail-flick of events during, and following, the pandemic. I’d prepared myself for tired, worried, even exhausted people; I’d also steeled myself to find colleagues who’d left entirely the difficult, financially-uncertain life of a creative professional.

In addition, I flew out just hours after posting my last piece in the campaign to push back on the government’s proposals to compromise UK copyright for the first time in decades, a move which would directly impact UK creatives’ livelihoods. It was still very much on my mind as I packed.

But I should have had more faith. I found a thriving, upbeat group buzzing with energy, delighted to see me (and me them), whether wizzing back on a plane immediately after the service or jumping straight on a Zoom call in the cab home. I went home for a brief disco nap, did a little work, caught up with some piled-up email then bounced around NYC taking care of errands, seeing art and art directors, sharing a space in my long-term friend and ex-agent’s lovely welcoming home, and walking for miles and miles along the way.

Fran is the reason we all came together. She is a huge part of my past. But a shared love of robust and adaptable creativity is what’ll keep us in each other’s orbits - and that, I will continue to remind myself, is my future. However opaque it might seem at times.