Drawing on Local Talent

Some Crazy Magic: Meeting Harry Smith from Drew Christie on Vimeo.

Local Seattle artist Drew Christie continues to surprise me. From his shiny new website comes another one of his endearing animations, fully illustrated in loving detail. This is a strange little story about a strange little man, Harry Everett Smith (1923-1991) who was an American archivist, ethnomusicologist, student of anthropology, record collector, experimental filmmaker, artist, bohemian and mystic. Even more strange, he was also a gifted magician. In one of the many bios about him, it states: Smith's broad range of interests resulted in a number of collections. He donated the largest known paper airplane collection in the world to the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum. He was a collector of Seminole textiles and Ukrainian Easter Eggs. He also considered himself the world's leading authority on string figures, having mastered hundreds of forms around the world.   
      Drew enjoys stories and music and this one is like a 3 minute novel told to him by noted musician and filmmaker John Cohen. Not only that, but Drew can seriously draw and hand letter. He also performed the music soundtrack to this short. Check out his blog and store featuring posters, books, original prints and DVDs of his animations. (I featured his lovely animated music video for a Moondoggies song >here< in October 2010). You can also place a custom order or subscribe to the Drew Quarterly and receive a surprise package 4x a year! 

      Serious sidenote: Drew's crazy nice website was designed by my 2 former students Andrew Nedimyer and Barry Sevig of Camp Doug. I cannot claim any credit for their fine digital doings sadly, but they are also a digital design duo to put on the To Watch List! I'm quite proud of them both!