I drew this stop motion animation, “Crazy”, with charcoal and chalk on paper in 2016 and have been reluctant to provide an artist statement or title until now. I do not think anything I can write will do it justice. I spent eight months repetitively ripping, erasing and hand drawing almost 1000 renderings while photographing each of them and then digitizing and editing it all together as a film. I only meant for it to be understood visually with complementary music because the meaning is not communicated well through words. At best what I can say about it sounds kind of “Crazy,” which is that there are layers of voices in my head.

The most obvious, or loudest ones, are my thoughts. They are tangible, concrete, for the most part I have control over them and are made up of words. Then beneath this, the voices get quieter and quieter until they are not using words anymore. They are more like hushed abstracted images or feelings that are so quickly fleeting, that processing them fast enough to translate it all into language is not likely. This voice is where the visual stories in my animation come from. Some people claim to understand this inner world through practices like meditation or hypnosis. I think I did it through art. I made “Crazy” in an experimental spontaneous way. Each time I erased, ripped, folded or drew, it was unplanned and connected to one of these “quiet fleeting abstracted voices.” This animation is a visual representation of my most intangible internal dialogues.

One of the only “tangible” and conscious decisions I made during this process was the initial venture to make an animation. I was inspired by my friend’s music and how beautifully, sometimes caoticly, they worked together to compose albums that felt so raw and moving. They were in a band and I spent a lot of time with them in what we called “the music shed” drawing while listening to them play. After being around musicians so often, I wanted to make art that incorporated music. I imagined a Will Evan’s song paired with this animation, but thought that was silly since I was a higschool kid and he was performing from North America to Europe, sharing stages with Dispatch, Grace Potter and other famous artists. I never asked him about it. Surprisingly, he left a comment on a post of my unedited animation asking if I needed music for it. I have always been a huge fan of his, even as a kid I would paddle board from my house to his beach concerts to listen to his music from the ocean; so I am honored to feature music from my favorite roots to rock-folk-jazz-reggae artist Will Evans.

When I drew "Crazy" in 2016, the market for digital art was not what it is now. I made it for myself and the people I love, not thinking there would ever be a place for it in the contemporary art world. With this massive shift in focus towards new media I am excited about the opportunities to work more with this animation. It has always been a favorite of mine.