Last night, I received a Certificate of Alumni Accomplishment from the St. Louis Community College Board of Trustees. I'm so honored to have received not one, but two, of these awards in the past decade. I was given the award in recognition of all I've done as a teacher there, in particular, setting up a mentorship program for recent STLCC - Florissant Valley Animation graduates.

For this program, I selected a diverse group of very talented recent graduates. These artists work as my apprentices, helping me with the art and animation on an animated series, as well as other paid opportunities. I was awarded a grant from the RAC which I’m using to pay them for their work. My hope is that this will provide them with a stepping stone to continue to hone their skills and gain professional experience to keep their careers moving forward.

Animation is, by nature, a collaborative process. It's been a lot of fun getting to work with other animators on something we all enjoy.

It was the strangest thing, Alexis Nugent, the College's Marketing and Communications Coordinator emailed me with a bunch of questions about my time in the Regional Arts Commission's Fellowship at the Center for Emerging Technologies which I'd participated in. Turns out they decided to do an article about it and it's actually on the front page of the college's website!

I'm not sure how long it'll be there, but here's the permalink to the story stlcc.edu/Newsroom/2018/January/News4.html Needless to say, I'm very flattered! ^_^

On Friday, January 12th CIC St. Louis hosted ARTrepreneurs: Designing Bridges for Creative Innovation, a showcase featuring artwork created by the 2017 RAC Artists Cohort at CET.

I was one of 6 artists chosen from the St. Louis area, by the Regional Arts Commissions of St. Louis (RAC), to participate in this pilot program which helps partner artists with the local start-up and entrepreneur community at the Center for Emerging Technologies (CET) and the Cortex Innovation Community (CIC). Each artist selected has plans to start or grow an art-related business in the St. Louis area.  This has given me the chance to meet with people that can help me better understand the business side of doing art.
 
For the past nine years, I’ve had a business doing animation and illustrations for clients in the entertainment industry however, that has always been working on other people’s projects. The RAC program gave me the opportunity to finally work on something all my own. My project has been the development of a new kind of animated series designed specifically for online viewing. I can’t get into too many specifics as this stage, but working on it has been a very exciting and rewarding experience.

At the ARTrepreneurs event my team and I debuted the animatic and concept art for the animated series. The event was extremely well attended, the room was packed! It was wonderful getting feedback from a live audience on the animatic, and a great way to celebrate everything I and my fellow artists have accomplished while working at the CET.

A big thanks goes out to Liz Pund - Program Manager at RAC, Christy Maxfield and Rikki Henry - Project Coordinators at the CET, and David Alexander - Cohort Leader for facilitating this wonderful opportunity. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention my fellow Artists in the cohort:

- Bianca Fitzpatrick, Singer/Songwriter and Fashion Enthusiast
- Gina Grafos, Visual Artist
- Tim Hykes, User Experience Designer
- Lindsay Obermeyer, Artist and Creative Entrepreneur
- Kevin Street, Dancer and Musician

It's been so inspiring to work with such amazingly talented people. I'm so glad to have been a part of this. Okay... now it's time to get back to work on the animation!

I think I'm starting to get the hang of all the work-arounds I have to do with Maya on a Mac, so that's good. Still kinda wish I had a Windows or Linux machine though.

Time for a walk cycle!

My biggest challenge has been Maya's stark refusal to believe me when I tell it I'm using a three button mouse. I go into preferences, tell it "I have a three button mouse" and it says "no". I've looked online for a cheat sheet that tells me the keyboard buttons to press to simulate the mouse clicks but all I get are people yelling at other people to buy three button mice and/ or throw out their Macs. -_-0

The time has finally come for me to tackle the beast that is Maya animation! Here are some early exercises. I know, they're nothing special but a gal's gotta start somewhere, right?

* Please excuse the field guides, etc. using Maya on a Mac has been tricky, turning the field guides on was my work around to get these to render out.

I'm very excited to be officially starting my Fellowship with the RAC at CIC@CET tomorrow.  I was one of six artists selected by the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis (RAC) to participate in a special nine month co-working opportunity at the Center for Emerging Technologies (CET).

The goal of the fellowship is to provide artists with access to a community of inventive people at the epicenter of entrepreneurship. We'll be forming a cohort that seeks to leverage the intersection of art, science, technology and innovation.

I'm really looking forward to meeting the other artists and seeing how I can use my creative skills to collaborate with the entrepreneurs and innovators in new and exciting ways!

The Art-In, an annual tradition in the Florissant Valley Art Department, treated students to a productive, inspiring and fun evening of art. Highlights included an amazing Shibori dying workshop taught by our Featured Artist, Lydia Crespo of Argaman and Defiance, who came in from Chicago to join us. The wildly popular Aromatherapy Workshop taught by our Contemporary Art Gallery Director, Deb Jenkins. A fast-paced and fun series of Art Games lead by me, Neko Pilarcik-Tellez. A studio lighting set-up for photography, courtesy of Doug Gaubatz and Christine Giancola-Youngberg. Last but certainly not least, the annual six-hour long Marathon Figure Drawing session lead by Bob Langnas. In addition to all that, students enjoyed all night access to labs and studio spaces, a movie/ video game room, and lots and lots of food!

It was my pleasure to take the lead in coordinating this year's events, but I could not have done it without the talent and dedication of all the faculty and staff who volunteered their time before, during and after the event to make it all happen. A special thank you to Julia Jenner, our Assistant Department Chair, for her help in marking this happen. It's always inspiring to see what our little department can do when we all pull together. Truly, one of the best nights of the year!

Event photos courtesy of Janice Nesser-Chu, Dean of Liberal Arts at STLCC Florissant Valley