8/30/2016 Interview with Artist Julie GratzAHC: Can you tell us a bit about your process, themes & inspirations? Julie: My process definitely varies with each project and with the motivation behind it. The inspiration for all of them comes from all the forms of art that I try to surround myself with: music, art, film, dance, and literature. I've noticed that my favorite kinds of art all successfully transport you to other worlds, whether they are surreal and fantastical or just a beautifully executed portrait of a different time or mindset. Another major inspiration for me is Martha's Vineyard, an island off the coast of Massachusetts that my family has always spent time on. Going to the beach at night is an incredible experience. Specifically, being able to be on the ocean and breathe the air from this enormous, seemingly endless body of strength and calm. It's when I feel the most alone and connected to the natural and supernatural world. This feeling has definitely inspired my recent painting work, and has always appeared in my art of all genres. I kind of fell into animation and editing, and very quickly realized how much I loved it and how natural it felt to me. I grew up in a musical household, and any time I wasn't spending on art, I spent dancing and choreographing in classes, on teams, and in musical theater. Animation was such an exciting prospect to me because I was able to combine art and dance, basically choreographing artwork to music. Every time I'm about to start something new I try to saturate myself in art. I'll spend hours falling down the vimeo rabbit hole of weird and beautiful animations, re-watching films that always inspire me, and going to gallery or museum shows. I can always find something to inspire what I'm working on, regardless of what medium it will be in. Before embarking on this huge animated music video I finished recently I went to the IFPDA print fair in NYC, and the MFA in Boston and ended up coming home with dozens of pictures of prints and paintings that had so much movement and texture. I love producing animation pieces that have a handmade quality, so fine art is always a great inspiration. My favorites from those trips were the prints by Sybil Andrews... man are those just waiting to be animated. A couple films that I watch whenever I need inspiration are "The Fall" by Tarsem, and "Song of the Sea" or "The Secret of Kells." In the last few years I've been equally proud of short films, collaborations, music videos, and paintings. Each one has definitely pulled from a love of movement, music, and "otherworldliness." So far in my career I've been lucky enough to be able to vary my technique a fair amount, learning as I go. I'd love to keep exploring, trying new things, and working with new people! Every time I'm inspired by something new it leads to a new kind of project. AHC: What first drew you to art? Julie: I was interested in art at a very early age. I remember one specific assignment in elementary school where every kid was asked to pick a photograph of a sea creature and draw it. I drew an Orca whale, and it was the first time I felt successful at drawing something realistic. In the next year or two my parents had me going to art lessons with this amazing portrait artist in our town. She made me feel incredibly artistic and definitely pushed me to have a very critical eye. She also taught me to enjoy getting my hands covered in charcoal, paint, and pencil dust. Because of her, I still love drawing portraits, and feel very confident in doing so. I don't necessarily use that skill very often anymore, but I think building artistic confidence very early on in my career helped me tremendously in staying true to my personal style and what I wanted to say. From then on, there was never really any question as to what direction my life would go in. I definitely had no concept of how I would actually "be an artist" as an adult, but I knew I would do it. AHC: Your work has so much rhythm, musicality, movement & unexpected moments of magic, as in your short film Alkaline. A lot goes into creating these pieces, what is that sort of process like, working with so many different elements all at once and also collaborating with so many people on a single project? Julie: Every project that I've done has had a different motivation and evolution. Alkaline has been the only project of its kind (so far) since it was a totally personal project. I had just moved to Brooklyn after graduating from school in Boston and had been rejected by every animation/post-production house that I had applied to. Admittedly, my animation portfolio was very small and pretty lame, but I knew that if I had the chance to dive into that world I would thrive. I came up with the loose concept for Alkaline because I wanted that chance to create something gorgeous with a group of talented people, and I realized that I had the friends and the resources to do that. I actually didn't plan it out as heavily as I should have, so it was definitely an intense learning experience. (For example, shooting at a high rate of 29.97 fps on project that we would be hand-drawing frame by frame was not super smart). My musicality and rhythm comes from my background of being surrounded by dance and music as I mentioned before. I'm really so happy that those things are what you took from the piece. That's definitely something that I'm drawn to. On top of loving a gorgeous surreality, I'm absolutely obsessed with videos, films, and choreography that perfectly accentuate the music they are accompanying (and vice versa). Alkaline was amazing because all of my friends were incredibly supportive and just hopped on board this idea of using all of our talents to create a beautiful piece. I was living with two cinematographers at the time, knew the dancers from my college dance crew days, and found the perfect song by another of my good friends. My theory was that if you bring all of this talent together, something amazing would come out of it. I didn't give much direction to Adrian, because he's definitely the best choreographer that I know and I trusted him immensely. The only planning I did was to watch Leslie and Michael's dance rehearsal footage and figure out what shots I wanted, and in which part of the train yard. The editing was actually pretty easy because the cuts felt like they had been choreographed into the piece. The animating was definitely a struggle however. I went through several totally different techniques, and landed on drawing it frame by frame with a tablet. I wanted the animation to match the energy and fluidity of the dance moves, and I think the imperfect drawing style ended up being perfect. I got the base down (after 2 years of work), and then actually found a couple other amazing animators to build up and accentuate what I had already done. Probably half way through the animation process I realized that I could use the animated energy as a window to show this other world that the characters are trying to escape to. So I ended up going to Martha's Vineyard for a few days by myself and lugging this camera around to line up all these gorgeous pathways to add this subliminal feeling of another dimension in the same space. It was a really amazing project, thanks to so many wonderful friends. Even down to the nature sound effects at the end, and the color correction throughout, I had so much help in making this project come to life. From start to finish it took about 2.5 years, so it was definitely a huge labor of love. Someday, I'd love to do another big personal project like this, but hopefully with some funding this time so it can be bigger, get done faster, and so I can pay people back for all of their hard work! AHC: Music is heavily fused throughout your work, could you talk about the role that music has played in your creative evolution and process? Music seems to have that rare quality of totally transporting you elsewhere as you listen to it, and I get that same feeling from a lot of your work, is that element of transporting something that you aim for in each piece? Julie: Again, it makes me so happy to know that you get that feeling from my work! It is absolutely something that I strive to achieve with pretty much every project that I work on. I know that when something or someone can create that feeling of transportation, it ends up sticking with me and influencing not only my artwork, but how I live in this world. AHC: Do you have any upcoming exhibits or projects you'd like to tell people about? Julie: I have a bunch of music videos that will be coming out soon which is always exciting. No intense personal animation projects in the works at the moment unfortunately, but hopefully soon! The only other thing that I'm excited about is that this will be my second year participating in Bushwick Open Studios on October 1st and 2nd in Brooklyn, NY. My studio is in a large building with an amazing and diverse artist community, and the whole event spans an entire neighborhood. It's definitely one of my favorite weekends of the year. I met some really great people last year, and saw some super beautiful events. I'll be showing some paintings, and screening some of my animations and short films and can't wait to meet everyone involved who stops by and participates! My studio is at Brooklyn Brush Studios: 203 Harrison Pl in Bushwick and we'll be open all day both days! Comments are closed.
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