Original artwork for some of Walt Disney's best feature films will be part of a triple-header of artistic creativity at the KVCC Center for New Media for the May 4 Art Hop in downtown Kalamazoo.
In addition to concept drawings that led to such superhits as "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and "Pinocchio" in animation's breakthrough years, the exhibition will demonstrate the impact of the digital age on the medium through the work of comic-book artist Paul Sizer of Kalamazoo and showcase the foundational work of Center for New Media students who are the animators of the future.
The opening-night reception will be from 6 to 8 p.m. All three of the exhibitions will be in place through Sunday, May 20.
"Disney Animation Art, 1937 to 1988: Drawing from Imagination" is being made available as part of the 2007 Kalamazoo Animation Festival International that will be staged in downtown Kalamazoo May 17-20. The curator of the 55-piece display is Steve Stanchfield, an assistant professor of animation and digital media at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit.
From the early 1930s through the 1950s, American animation, paced by Disney, Chuck Jones and Warner Brothers' Looney Tunes, Max Fleisher and Popeye, and the tandem of David Depatie and Fritz Freleng, "sparkled with beauty, creativity, technical innovation and humor," Stanchfield said.
Regarded as the first "Golden Age of Animation," the industry needed to almost re-invent itself with the coming of television as a medium of popular entertainment. Today, there is more animation, thanks to the emergence of computer technology, than ever before, but it comes from a different process and results in different forms.
When Disney launched his "Snow White" project, he was almost universally ridiculed for what was called "a folly" by so-called informed observers. However, Stanchfield said, "the result was a milestone in the history of animation as the highest grossing film of 1938. It proved that an audience would sit through a full-length 'Mickey Mouse' production and identify with the characters."
Yet, Disney's personal favorite was 1940's "Pinocchio" because of "its craftsmanship, attention to detail, and quality of the concept drawings," Stanchfield said. "Because of the onset of World War II, Disney's animators converted to war-time productions and the same level of detailed craftsmanship never returned."
"Drawing from Imagination" also includes the pen-and-ink drawings of other famous animators who created memorable characters on the screen with their film shorts and features.
Sizer's exhibition is titled "Looking for the Perfect Beat."
"As the medium of the graphic novel advances in subject matter and sophistication," said Sizer, whose characters and creations include "Little White Mouse" and "Moped Army," "so too does the requirement to advance the art as well."
He said these "new opportunities of technology" channeled him toward "B. P. M. (Beats Per Minute)" as a "combination of digital photography and traditional pen-and-ink work." His results will be shown on the plasma screens in the Center for New Media's Arcus Gallery. Sizer will also display digital work from his other "graphic novels" as well as the original pen-and-ink comic pages.
Among the KVCC artists showing their drawings in "Character Design & Animation: Center for New Media Student Work" are Rebecca Boensch and Pam Hoyt of Kalamazoo.
Boensch, who was raised in Saginaw, was a member of the Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University team that won the "Cartoon Challenge" competition at the 2005 KAFI. After earning her degree in fine arts, she was hired as an interactive designer by Biggs Gilmore Communications in Kalamazoo and is taking animation courses at KVCC's Center for New Media.
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