"16 letters" opens today on Gothtober

"16 letters," my newest animation, opens today, October 6th, on Gothtober. I'm really grateful to be included on the calendar again and be able to share my work this way.

This impish six-minute stop-motion animated piece plays with moveable letters that represent a partial selection of the alphabet, morphing a few letters at a time into a succession of words. Reflecting on the malleability and abstract power of language and thought, I expanded on the meaning of and my personal associations with each word using sound and images, with sometimes rather quirky results.

Letters ready to become words and 

ideas on my animation stage

Language starts as something finite, but becomes infinitely expansive. As a student of linguistics, I marvel at the gigantic potential that a small and finite number of language sounds (represented somewhat approximately by letters) has to represent an unlimited number of concepts as words.

Words, and language itself, are abstract entities and don't belong to anyone, but everyone who can talk holds them as a deeply and unconsciously integrated part of himself, effortlessly using them to think and communicate. Language is a part of us at the basic physical level, in the structures of our brains and vocal tracts, but it soars into our highest thoughts and most ineffable emotions and experiences. And though we all may know and use a particular word, the ideas, memories, and feelings we associate with it can be delightfully unique.

Please take a look at what I've done. I have a lot of fun on my own creating these pieces, but I also make them for you, the viewer. So do let me know what you think.

Go to www.gothtober.com and take a look at Julianna's creation for the main page this year: the Gothtober International Airport. Then click on the number 6, on the brown suitcase on top of the baggage cart, and take off on a six-minute flight with "16 letters."

The Little Mermaid

Have you ever  tried working with a 200-watt light bulb blazing at each side of your head? I’d say it’s somewhat like the sensation a consciousness-endowed eggplant would experience inside a solar oven on a July day in Arizona, about halfway to its final form as baba ghanoush. Try it sometime. Working between two 200-watt light bulbs, I mean, not the baba ghanoush. I’m sure that you, sophisticated reader, have already tried baba ghanoush.

I mention this unique sensation of being solar-baked because working alongside 200-watt light bulbs is a necessary part of making stop animation, which is the medium I’ve been exploring this year. The realm of the Brothers Quay, Martha Coburn, and Gumby and Poky, stop animation is the process of making physical objects appear to move by capturing them in sequential photographs.

Setting up a shot on my animation stage

In my new three-minute stop animation, “The Little Mermaid,” the physical objects are two-dimensional jointed puppets that tell the story of a solitary mermaid. This project is the result of about four months of work, and the mounting of a lot of steep learning curves, including figuring out how to set up a useable animation stage, getting some kind of grip on creating the desired animation speeds and motion, and getting accustomed to the subtleties of digital photography beyond the snapshot camera.

“The Little Mermaid” makes its Internet debut October 7^th on the great Gothtober.com. So, this Sunday, when you come back from your starry-eyed Sunday stroll or leisurely autumn picnic in the park (or harried soccer practice pickup, or desperate dash through the grocery store, arms full of deli-packed baba ghanoush, or whatever your Sunday looks like), I invite you to click on Gothtober pumpkin number 7 and meet the little mermaid.

Go to the second "Little Mermaid" entry

Work included in Gothtober.com 2008

In October 2008, I had an animated piece included in the fabulous online Halloween countdown calendar, Gothtober.com! 

Gothtober, a brainchild of artist and illustrator Julianna Parr, counts down the days of October to Halloween by marking each day with an original piece of online art created by a different artist. It's quite fun to go to the site each day in October and find out what's hiding behind that day's virtual door.

My piece opened on Day 21 (and yes, you can still see it now that Day 21 has passed). It's a recording (of yours truly!) singing a traditional Latin American folk song, accompanied by animated versions of my original gouache illustrations. This was my first time animating, so I have an itch to create a second, even better version, but I'm still excited to share Version 1 with you.

Take a look! Go to www.gothtober.com and click on "21" (low on the page, just to the right of the skeleton mariachi trio).