John Fayette Frame (born November 27, 1950) is an American sculptor , photographer , composer , and filmmaker . He has been working as an artist in California since the early 1980s. Frame has received grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts , the J. Paul Getty Museum , and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He has participated in group exhibitions worldwide and has had major solo exhibitions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art , the Long Beach Museum of Art , and the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
The questions:
How and why did your journey into animation begin?
I came to animation indirectly. I was a static sculptor until about 2000, when I was completely blocked for almost 5 years. At the end of that period a project, “Three fragments of a lost tale” , came to my consciousness fully realized. The most important thing about the project was that all the characters moved. From that moment on I learned to articulate the figures to allow them to animate.
What are your sources of inspiration?
Most of my inspirations come from other arts. The most important has been literature, especially Shakespeare. Classical music, especially Shostakovich and Bach recently. Philosophy, especially Stoic and most notably Marcus Aurelius and Seneca.
Tell us about your creative process.
My creative process involves paying attention to three areas of action. Call them head , heartand hand . The head is all that is intellectual, the heart is the engine of the work and the hand is the technical aspect. I try to make each of these three areas as complete and authentic as possible and trust my intuition to insert them into the work I do.
Is there a part of the process that bores you? And what part excites you?
I have never been particularly enamoured with the studio process. Much of it I find quite boring and technically difficult. It is only when the work is complete and seen by others that I derive the greatest pleasure from it. Overcoming all the difficulties is certainly worth the reward I receive when people respond strongly to what I do.
Emotional.
How would you define the non-branded animation scene? Is there an audience? What channels do you use to publish and reach as many viewers as possible?
I think the animation scene outside of the big studios is actually where the most interesting work is being done. It’s sometimes hard to distinguish the truly great stuff from the 10 or 15 minute animations that populate so much of social media. If there’s an audience for indie work, it’s among the people willing to put in the time to find that work. I’m not at all sure how many people are willing to do that. I’m new to social media, so I don’t have any advice for that area.
Any new projects in the pipeline?
Yes, I am working hard on new things. I am very slow in completing my work, but I have been working hard these past few months.
