Kjell Hahn

well, things are moving along studio-wise.  no more running around for a little while so I can focus on my work.  next week im going to the other side of the country to help fire John Dix’s kiln and to meet with an Osaka gallery owner. after that i have to find a job. boo hoo.

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in the meantime im working on the house for a few hours a day and drawing the rest of the time. im really satisfied with these non-specific organic clump works I’ve been making recently.  the media isnt giving me problems like I had in the Nagoya crowd series.   the shapes in the drawings take on a life of their own, with the same kind of dynamic interactions as the Oni Landscape series but without feeling as automated as that series had.  i’ve done a couple on wood paneling and MDF but most of the ones I like best have been on paper.  im aiming to get a couple of the larger pieces in a finished state, and hopefully documented before I leave town.

This animation was made with Himeji Higashi ESS club in 2005.

I made this video with 9 students from English club while working at Himeji Higashi high school. While the production value isn’t exactly Hollywood, it still took us several months and a few tears to make. We started off with a lot of energy on this project, but I soon learned that a 16 year-old girl’s first priority in life isn’t working under 2000 watts of lights, inching tiny cardboard puppets around for hours on end.

Regrettably, I put in far more hours than the actual club members but tried to get them to do as much of the work as possible. The story was written entirely by them, and we all worked together to make and animate the puppets.

Since all the club members were girls playing male roles they forced me to be Dorthy’s voice. It probably would have been better w/o my voice, though no one wanted that much screen time. Chiaki “Robert” Sugahara really come up to the plate on that one with her role as The Scarecrow.