Animation + Collaboration

One question I’m consistently asked is:

“Do you ever want to return to animation?”

I have to laugh because it’s meant as a general question and it’s so loaded for me. When I started the animation journey in 2011, I had no idea I would end up receiving my master’s in character animation. Did I want a career in this? Absolutely! However, along the way there were so many bumps + creative bombs that steered me, little by little, away from the craft. I decided to open a business in home organization + call it a day on animation. This detour allowed me space to step away from what, at the time, felt like immense pressure to animate realistic movement + be technically perfect — the joy was sucked right out + what was left felt bitter. It all felt like a waste + a rogue detour that took me far out of the right path. Perhaps this is why my infatuation for the past few months has shocked me. It started with wanting to draw walk cycles + bouncing balls again before quickly graduating to full-scale parodies. Drawing situations, comedy, discoveries + explanations warms a very particular part of my heart. As it turns out: I love animating. I had planned on building my career on graphics + the occasional video, but what I’ve found is this skill, lying dormant under the surface for years, seems to have been politely waiting for me to play again. The full-scale parody I mentioned is of the Bewitched intro, featuring Drew + myself, just for the heck of it [pictured below].

As weird as it feels to be animating again, I absolutely love what is coming out of it + my enjoyment of the process is fresh + unhindered by expectation. After I posted a handful of stills + one piece of line work from the Bewitched intro, I had a few people ask if I would be willing to make this for their business. Will I make this a service with Creativist Co.? I have no clue. For now, I’m creating with no expectation + enjoying the gift that it is. Perhaps this is the healthiest thing we can do with our creativity: to play + not demand that it start paying us right away.

This seems to be a theme happening, lately. Drew has several unnamed projects that continue to pull his curiosity into their development. Will he release it to the public? He doesn’t know [he’ll have more to say when he writes the next post…].

What we do know is these projects seem to give us life simply by existing in our playtime. Until we know more, we’ll leave them in the creative sandbox + continue working on our Creativist projects with enthusiasm.

As we move into 2021, we are most excited about collaborations. There’s more creativity with collaboration + we hope to see this year filled with collaborative projects. One exciting collab we’ve begun is with Tristen Holsburg, our good friend + gifted photographer. We’ve admired her work for a long while + are so excited she wanted to work with us. You’ll start seeing her photography more on our feeds, emails + website. Speaking of enjoying your hobby without pressure, visit her Instagram profile to hear how she’s running her photography business.

At the end of the day, we are continually aiming to build a life-rhythm that feels doable. None of this is possible without saying no to the good things, elevating the important things, highlighting our strengths + outsourcing our weaknesses. We’re thankful + hopeful for what this month has in store + we hope you are, too.

Create on,
Lyndsi + Drew