still here

My first, very short, non-animation film in over a year.

This video’s source was a live photo of a peony bud, and it got more complex from there.

I am still feeling a bit at sea our second year into the pandemic. Now even with vaccinations and boosters, the latest variant is stomping all over our hopes to be safe from illness or death.

While I was patient and relieved last March after my first vaccination dose, by the time I got my booster in October and started to see some of my friends again, it has begun to feel like it will be a very, very long time till we can go about our lives comfortably once more.

What to do? Who were you before? Who are you now? Who do you want to be?

The mixture of work and family duties has been manageable while working from home, but has left me little time to do much else – or rather, the lack of time alone to breathe and regroup, think and plan. This very short film is a reach back to my purely machine days (nothing hand drawn) where my source video was shot only by me (no “recycled film”) – it’s a confirmation for me that my inspiration and skills haven’t withered away with the depressing fact that we’re all still stuck in this weird time. As well, that they can survive transitions that I am making right now – getting away from constant e-communication, no longer posting on social media, trying to move into a slower world despite the fact that the main reason my work “got out there” was because of the internet.

I’m still here.