Stop-Motion Shorts
Wassily's Self Portrait is the first short I ever made featuring a skillipea. I created this in 2021, my grandpa and grandma had both recently passed away within a few months of each other and I moved from their house in Hastings Nebraska, back to Colorado. I was living in Pueblo and working as a grow technician at an organic greenhouse growing medical and recreational cannabis and had spent the last years taking care of my grandparents and dumping as much time and money as I could into a failing painting career. I really enjoyed working with plants and so I finally kind of let the idea of painting having to be my career go for a moment but I couldn't stop creating. I went back to my childhood passion of stop motion. I created this alien turtle reminiscent of creatures I used to draw and I named him Wassily because my favorite painter is Wassily Kandinsky.
Solar Neighbor is a very special piece to me. This is the longest I have ever worked on any art project and it has completely changed my life. Below you will find the trailer for Solar Neighbor, as well as a short documentary called "Down to Earth" directed by a very talented filmmaker named Jeurdan Directo. When I met Jeurdan he was in his last semester of film school and needed to create a documentary for a school project. He chose to do his documentary about the creation of Solar Neighbor and reached out to me about it. Meeting him and getting to know him in that process was such a joy and he is now a good friend. Please check it out to learn more about what into the creation of this project.
Solar Neighbor is not quite available to the public yet as it is nearing the end of its film festival circuit. Since its premier it has played in 68 film festivals worldwide, been nominated for 22 awards and won 17. Solar Neighbor will be available to the public exclusively on this website this holiday season.
"Down to Earth"
Solar Neighbor Documentary
Directed by: Jeurdan Directo
"Solar Neighbor Trailer"
Skip & Henry is the newest short film, it premiered earlier this year. It is a slice of life micro short that depicts a peaceful evening in the life of skillipea Skip, and his snailpup companion Henry. This project really completely just fell into place. By chance I was neighbors with Mattie and her husband Skip at an art market. Mattie is a print maker who owns a shop in Manitu Springs called Mattie and the Kitties Print Shop. Skip is an incredible musician, they both are fantastic people and talking to them, and hearing Skips music and perspective on art, I just wanted to make something with him and his music. I loved how he spoke about creating a feeling with his music and so that lead and the film just fell into place. My roommate at the time had just adopted a puppy named Henry and so the inspiration was right in front of me. It has been accepted in 24 film festivals so far, and has won 6 awards.