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The Americans
at Grass Hut Gallery
811 E. Burnside
Portland, OR

Opens at noon on the 4th of July
Bar Bee Que, Fireworks, Beer, Lemon-aid and art.

Line up:
Dawn Riddle
Scott Barry
Ryan Jacob Smith
Claire Miller
Scrappers
Jesse Brown
Kim Scafuro
Justin Lovato
Nick doodles art
Shawn Wolfe
Brad Simon
Dr. Medz
Ross McSweeney
Ryan Berkley
Pete Toms
Bwana Spoons
Brett Superstar
Chuck Hill
John Black
Ademar Matinian
Sean Alexander
THE HANNA
BT Livermore
Arbito
Dickbird
Jimm Lasser
Caley Feeney
Aidan Koch
Amy Morrison
Devi Pellerin
Niles Armstrong
Tripper Dungan
Reverend Benny Bob
Steve Mathews
Shayla Hason
Tom Webb
Josh Herbolsheimer
Merideth Hamm
Mark Gunderson
David Wein

Ian Ross, Drake Brodahl, Troy Parke, Matt and myself went down to the screening of “The Animation Show 4” at the Varsity this Friday.  We sat next to a crew from the old Sucker Punch days including Suzanne Kaufmann (who currently instructs at Digipen and is working with us at Plexi this summer), Ramey Harris, Bart Kaufman and Gene Blakefield who worked with us (meaning Matt, Troy and Joel) at another studio before going over to Sucker Punch. 

The highlights of the show for me included Joel’s intro piece, Pes’ “Western Spaghetti”,  and Matthew Walker’s “John and Karen”.  Word straight from Joel was that he did an ending animation that wasn’t included in the screening.  Perhaps it’ll make an appearance sometime in the not-so-distant future. 

After the screening, Joel Trussell, Rebecca Moline and Robert May (Producers of “The Animation Show”), Anton Bogaty, Gene Blakefield, Tom DesLongchamp and his wife Jessica, Matt and I went over to Flowers for a couple of drinks and lots of animation chatter.   The group eventually ended up in Capital Hill for more drinkage and deep discussions.  Hanging out with Gene, Anton, and Joel again after such a long time was such a wonderful treat–reminiscing, talking about new stuff, being wacky, eating lots of fries and fried fish, *sigh*!  The cherry that topped everything off was getting a chance to meet and talk to the very delightful Rebecca and Rob.  Thank you for some fun times!!!

Joel in the Plexipixel animation clubhouse

Troy cheesing it up with Joel Trussell

Rob May, Joel Trussell and Rebecca Moline rocking HARD

Getting crabs in Northgate with Gene Blakefield and his adorable family

Joel, Anton Bogaty (and Matt) reliving old times at the Canterbury

Our old friend Joel Trussell will be at The Animation Show screening along with “The Animation Show team” (I have no idea who that entails).  Matt and Joel worked together way back in the “old days of Flash” (circa late 90’s) on groundbreaking projects like Zombie College. 

Since then Joel’s worked on a number of totally amazing animations for Yo Gabba Gabba and Esurance as well as the award-winning War Photographer video for Jason Forrest. 

Joel will be at the 7:15pm showing on Friday, June 20th at the Varsity Theatre in Seattle. 

Matt, Troy, and Vicky will definitely be there!

Jim Woodring has a new book out which is available signed by the amazingly talented artist himself on his website.  A signed book will be sent to your doorstep for a mere $25 (shipping included) or $35 overseas. 

“The Museum of Love and Mystery” constains 24 cardboard pages of full-color images from Frank’s holiday sojourn in the Western Unifactor.

Matt already has a copy of this book.  It’s a MUST HAVE. 

Saturday, June 7, 2008
10am - noon
Under the Arches near the Pacific Science Center

Meet the star of Wall*E and other nerds like us taking photos with the cute little dude.  Don’t forget to bring your camera!

Those Hiberts are busy!  Snaggs will be in a group show at Giant Robot New York with Le Merde and Scrappers from June 21 to July 16. 

Arbito has a print in the “Now Showing” Poster Show at Cosh in London.  The show runs through June 13th, 2008.

Tony White has posted a version of his short film “Endangered Species” for viewing on YouTube.  It’s a mockumentary of the rise and fall of traditional animation.  The animation in the piece is well executed.  The pace is good and the content of the story is interesting and compelling.  The most creative part of the film is how Tony mimics snippets of well-known animations using Tony’s well-known animation character in a delightfully playful way. 

Toon Zone posted a really comprehensive interview with Tony in 2006 about the “Endangered Species” animation and its inspiration.   

In the interview, Tony mentions his ill-fated ”Animation Masterclass” book.  This was the book that Tony consulted with Matt Tamaru (Rodriguez at the time) on Flash character animation.  Unfortunately, ”Animation Masterclass” never did see the light of day. 

Here’s the film.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

I had a great time at the Ion Conference last week.  What was different about this conference was that the organizers focused on the social aspect of doing business.  The speakers and sessions were good, but what stood out were the many networking opportunities integrated into the event. 

There was a half an hour space between each session.  All of the rooms were fairly close together and connected to each other by a lobby that was usually filled myriad of refreshments.  Food and drink and free time generally facilitates conversation.  That combination resulted in many conversations about the game industry, the entertainment business and otherwise with some very interesting and lovely people.    

That said, I’d like to give a shout-out to a few of the many folks I met:

• Daniel Ostenso from the Illinois Institute of Art
• Sabrina Gasson from Testronic Laboratories in the UK
• Shawn Foust, Associate at Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton, LLC in Century City, CA
• Greg Lester from Colliers Interantional in Bellevue, WA
• Tim Robinson from Krome Studios, Australia
• Radha Kotamarti, Microsoft
• Chris LeFeaver, a Canadian working for Amberlight in London
• Connie Gougler, Iovation in Portland, OR
• Nathan Emerson and Andrew Maxwell from Markee Dragon in Portland

See you guys next year, I hope! 

Matt and I spent a little time with Tony White (award-winning animator and Digipen instructor) and his partner Saille while we were in Southern California.  Here’s a blog entry about what Tony was up to and consequently a little bit about what we were up to. 

I forgot my camera, so there will be photos from our trip on Flickr when Matt gets a chance.  Until then, here’s a photo of our friend Monica Hare and Wall-E on the Disney Studio Lot.

Ryan Worsley (humble Plexiperson by day; amazing fine artist during the remaining 16 hours) will be showing her gorgeous work in June, at Tigertail: 

Ryan Worsley - Buildings on Glass
At Tigertail
704 NW 65th Street
June 1-30, 2008

Opening reception Thursday, June 5 from 6-9pm