It’s become an annual tradition that I’m always proud to do…the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Holiday Card! Here ’tis! Featuring music by David Yockel Jr. and dance moves by Rishauna Zumberg.
Just spent a few days down in West Virginia at the North Mountain Residency with other ILSSA (Impractical Labor in Service of the Speculative Arts) members and am re-energized as a teacher AND a human being! Workshops varied from book-binding to sonic meditation to vintage animation, which is the discussion I led and which pleasantly surprised me in terms of everyone’s focus, efforts and results. They can all be seen here, including a song sung during dinner-prep that I absolutely had to include.
Made a sample recording for my Dynamics class, and though I cringe at the sound of my own voice, I felt it important that they see the audio all the way through to the lip-synch, so I gave it a shot. Disclaimer…this audio may or may not be true…
Spent my third summer teaching the Summer PreCollege Animation Program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, and these high school students never cease to amaze me! For two weeks we covered the entire production pipeline, from the principles of animation and story creation to storyboarding and animation production. They completed the films below in only five days! An incredible feat by any standard.
Just spent another two weeks in New York City with some fabulously focused and hard-working high school students! I could go on and on about how much they accomplished in five days of production, but their work speaks for itself!
Thanks to some amazing colleagues, students and the always-up-for-a-challenge Greg Condon, we were able to complete this pixilation short in Mount Hope Cemetery after a one take, 10-hour shoot on October 17th (the ONE sunny day in the entire month and two weeks before Susan B. Anthony’s grave site was visited by thousands of people who had cast their votes). May we treasure every single inch of ground we have gained, and protect it for all it’s worth.
For the second year in a row, I spent two weeks in NYC with some incredibly talented, dedicated high school students as part of SVA’s PreCollege Animation Program. And, for the second year in a row, I was blown away by the determination and work ethic displayed by each and every one of them. We worked together from 9 in the morning until 4 in the evening, five days each week, and I swear to you they got up from their Cintiq tablets all of three times in ten days. ;) Congratulations to all of my Summer 2016 students, the world awaits your talents!
In between teaching at SVA for the past two weeks, David Yockel Jr. and I completed a film for the NYFA fellows exhibition “Decensortized: A Safe Space” opening THIS Friday, August 5th, from 6-9pm at Westbeth Gallery (55 Bethune Street NY,NY).
The film is made up of over five hundred Pollack Flavor Co. stickers I found by the roll in a dumpster a few years ago. I wrote David’s poem, word by word, on each sticker, and we photographed them throughout Brooklyn over several sticky, sweaty days! Though in hindsight I would have shot even more frames per sticker, I am super psyched with the results, and will definitely be putting the stickers to use again in the future. If you would like to express yourself through flavor stickers this Friday, head on over the Westbeth Gallery…there will be stickers there waiting for your own hand drawn message!
I cannot totally believe it myself, but this morning Kate Cosden and I turned the (hand-built) crank of an actual, functioning Mutoscope (sans animation for now!). My welds are garbage, and there’s not a single set of parallel edges to be found, but I’d like us all to focus on the fact that it works!!
I made a bunch of super mini shorts for these guys over the winter, and now they’re officially out there in the world since Cartuna has launched! Here’s one of the first ones I made…
