In this month’s Isle of Man Arts Council column, arts engagement officer Jade Boylan details the latest creative sparks across the island.

On an island like ours, community runs deep, but it can still be easy to feel adrift.

That’s where the arts come in - not just as entertainment, but as a bridge, a way to connect to each other and to the creativity so many of us leave behind in childhood.

Across the Isle of Man, creative spaces become havens of such connection and creativity.

In Port St Mary, community mosaic workshops brought residents together to craft a permanent tribute to the RNLI, tile by tile, story by story, all seamlessly organised by Isle Be Creative and supported by the Isle of Man Arts Council.

Up north in Ramsey, the ongoing Mural Boards project is transforming the town into an open-air gallery, with 26 works by local artists soon to be displayed on walls and buildings, each piece an individual spark of Manx identity and pride complementing the public art already decorating the town.

Just this past weekend, MADF’s 75th Anniversary Easter Festival of Plays filled the Gaiety Theatre with voices from across the island.

Local amateur dramatics groups wrote, staged, and performed their own short plays for the One-Act Weekend, proving that creativity thrives in community halls, late-night rehearsals, and the courage to share an original story.

Meanwhile, over in England, Team Isle of Man danced their way to first place in the Junior Easter Dance Festival Team Match at the 2025 Blackpool Dance Festival, a stunning achievement proudly supported in part by the Isle of Man Arts Council through the Domestic Travel Fund - which helps local creatives to take their talents to the UK and Ireland.

For such a small island, we are overflowing with creative talent.

This past weekend also saw the Isle of Man Art Society’s annual Easter Exhibition, showcasing more than 300 pieces created by 92 island artists.

Similarly, at the Hodgson-Loom Gallery in Laxey, the current ‘Teeth’ exhibition brings together dozens of artists, both emerging and established, around a singular, wonderfully strange theme.

As someone who’s worked in creative spaces for over a decade, I’ve seen first-hand how the arts can soften the walls we build around ourselves.

They offer us a place to bring our stories, our struggles, and our strengths.

Our island’s creativity has a particular kind of magic. Maybe it’s the way the wind carries music across the rolling hills, or how stories passed down through generations still echo in today’s creative projects and events.

Maybe it's just that, in such a small place, every creative voice really counts.

In a world that often moves too fast, the arts slow us down long enough to offer even a brief moment of escape - and that’s no small thing.

So whether you dance, draw, sing, write, act, stitch, play, or simply sit in the front row and clap with your whole heart, there is a place for you in the Isle of Man’s creative community. Always.