Many of you may be wondering,
"Hey Nicole, you're supposed to be an animator. What's with all this crochet stuff?"
That is a valid question, and it is one that I have been asking myself as well for some time now. No, I have not given up on animation. In fact, my desire to animate has grown progressively stronger in the last month or so. There are several reasons why I haven't posted any new shorts on here in a while.
1.) My laptop broke. Yes, my dear lappy, that has seen me through all of college and grad school, no longer has a functional screen (which is kind of important for seeing things). So when I DID do art on it, I had to steal a monitor from a different computer and hook it up to my lappy. Which would be fine (although inconvenient) but all of my memory and space and what-not was pretty much used up anyway from years of art projects and homework soooo.... it was kind of like EVERYTHING worked at dial-up speeds, regardless of if you were even trying to use the internet. My beloved laptop had served me well for 7 years, but its time had come.
2.) Bye-bye workspace. Without my lappy I needed to use the kitchen computer which meant the only time I got to work in silence was when I banished my parents to the other end of the house. (They didn't mind, and even offered to banish themselves, but still. THE GUILT.) I hated basically kicking my parents out the house so I could work. I mean, it's THEIR house. It made it so hard to concentrate.
3.) All of my programs were on my laptop. No programs = no new 2D art. Yes Maya was on the kitchen computer, but yeah. See Point 2.
Okay, so that explains why there's no animation, but WHY ALL THE YARN?
1.) The first reason is that I love to crochet (which is probably pretty obvious at this point). It became my way of being creative without the use of technical programs and computers. I see something, or I sketch something and I make it 3-dimensional. It's like sculpting, with a different type of medium. I get to think, and problem solve, and in the end I have this physical thing that makes people happy.
2.) I've been really lost with my animation. Or maybe I should say, without it. It has been genuinely difficult for me being outside of an artistic environment. I started questioning myself and what direction I wanted to go in animation-wise. My focus at SCAD was primarily CG animation using Maya. But I kept thinking about my Animation Aesthetics and Practice class with Professor Simon and the shorts he showed us by Pes and other non-traditional animators. Examples of stop-motion and pixilation. Of people working with their hands to create these fascinating animations. The question became, do I follow what I know (that being CG Maya animations) or do I listen to that little voice that leads me to the unconventional?
I've discovered that I love to work with my hands. I know I've mentioned this before, but for the first time I've realized that maybe, just maybe, my love of crochet could steer me into a career in a different type of animation than I had originally planned. Why not take these two passions of mine and combine them into something awesome? (Especially since I just got a brand new desktop which I've already begun loading with my art programs.) Just the thought of this gets me so excited and motivated. I finally have a goal again and a direction to follow and it feels amazing.
So for now, look at my crochet projects as sketches or tests. With each one, I learn more about building and designing and shaping this medium. And they lead me to ideas for animations using other mediums as well (I have several very basic storyboards sketched out already).
It's time to break out of the mold. It's time to do what my heart tells me. It's time to animate.
