Elsewhere Winding Down...and Beyond!

It’s our last week at Elsewhere Collaborative in Greensboro, NC. We’re still clicking away on the History of Dust, brainstorming Traps with students in Columbia, Missouri and Mount Vernon, Iowa, and, it must be noted, completed a short research mission at the sea.

 

Here we are having a little fun with a Jack-in-the-box while talking remotely with students at EEE school in Columbia, MO. We will be creating a Trap animation with them in two weeks.

Sometimes during our remote conversations the students looked like pixelated waving sea creatures. We had a great time introducing them to Tiny Circus and listening to them respond to the animations. Their enthusiasm was bursting through the screen.

 

Let's not forget the most important thing: Ice Cream!  A walk down the street from Elsewhere is an important part of our days here - coffee espresso, mint chocolate chip, strawberry cheesecake - it's the Dari Barn of the south!

 

 Elsewhere has a six-person bike called the "Surrey" - here TC members and other residents of Elsewhere take the Surrey for a spin around town.  

 

Sound editing in the sun, on the couch, on the porch.   The doors open to the street and passers-by often peer in to see what we are up to. 

Up next: Spartanburg, South Carolina, where we’ll be doing a workshop with the community at HUB-BUB, an art space and residency. Check out the HUB-BUB blog for a short history of the Tiny Tiny Circus and plans for our workshop and show. The characters are ready for lights, camera, and action via lots of Spartanburg hands!

Films, Music, Pie

A few weeks ago, Tiny Circus was a part of Backyard Band/with, an evening of films set to live scores by local musicians, and our favorite part: it’s a potluck with homemade pies. We wish we could have shared Circus bread with the 1,500 people who came to this community event at Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens, New York.

The History of War, created by a group of about 20 children and adults at the Citizen Jane Film Festival in 2009, and The History of Falling, were great punctuation marks for the program of films, helping to transition between heavier and lighter pieces. A beautiful and tasty night.

An Eventful Weekend

The circus celebrated Labor Day with a weekend full of fun events and even a swimming trip to the local quarry.  A few days ago we put on a roadside Tiny Circus show in front of Elsewhere as part of Downtown Fridays in Greensboro.  Passers-by could watch all sorts of Tiny Circus histories, then come inside to help create our latest work in progress: The History of Dust.

Other Elsewherians took part in Downtown Fridays as well, making it a fun, high energy evening for everyone.

Resident artists challenged each other in super wheelie ball, an original game created by Ben Garthus.

Dust continued forming the next day, and was helped along by hands big and small at a free stop motion Playshop held at Elsewhere.  As you can see, we’re surrounded by books, and so its only natural that books play a big role in telling the History of Dust.  Using books as building blocks we are currently constructing a one-of-a-kind, book bound time machine!  As all the dust keeps piling up we look forward to sharing more updates with you soon.

Another One Blogs The Dust

Today a collection of Elsewherians brainstormed the The History of Dust. Sitting around the table in what is known as the Collaboratory, we talked about the ways and places dust gathers and what the existence or absence of dust could mean.

As we settled on dust, there were moments of levity.

And more serious contemplations. 

Trying to keep track of all of the little particles of ideas. 

The storyboarding begins!

Carlos, Jess, Johanna, and Laura talking through the animation. 

At this stage in the brainstorm we try to describe the story as visually as possible to make sure we’re imagining the animation in the same way. We were inspired (one might even say bound) by our surroundings.

Now we get our hands dirty. We’ll make the set and props for the animation with visitors to Elsewhere’s Open House on Friday. And on Saturday: we animate! If you're around, come play with us.

Tiny Circus goes Elsewhere...

After raising hell and high water Tiny Circus traveled through an earthquake and approaching hurricane to park our airstream in downtown Greensboro, NC for a month long residency at Elsewhere.

Elsewhere is an arts production site and museum set within a former thrift store housing a 58-year collection of colorful American surplus, thrift, and antiques. We’re excited to be part of the Elsewhere community of artists and to spend the next month playing in this amazing space!

During our first days at Elsewhere the Tiny Circus gave an artist talk and learned about other resident’s work. The next night we attended an outer-space themed community dinner for a fellow Elsewhere resident’s project Radio Espacio Estacion. 

Elsewhere’s incredible living museum provides a unique setting to create new histories as well as site-specific shorts with the Tiny Tiny Circus characters developed over the past summer. Stay tuned for lots of updates-its gonna be a fun month!

Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown

From Gatlinburg, the circus headed 1004 miles north to Provincetown, Massachusetts to teach another animation class. 

Our studio was in a renovated lumber-yard at the Fine Arts Work Center.  Class participants divided into groups to brainstorm short animations.

Storyboarding "Hell or High Water".

Animating a soggy marshmallow.

The finished animation, a beautiful little short.  Tiny Circus heads south next to Elsewhere, in Greensboro, NC. 

Arrowmont School of Art and Craft

 Tiny Circus traveled to Gatlinburg, TN, land of swimming holes and bears, to teach an animation class at the Arrowmont school.  Class participants began by illustrating an common idiom (a stitch in time saves nine) to learn various animating processes

Next, the class turned to a more familiar topic and began to created an animated bear trap.

 Here, animating a chair lift behind a scene of Gatlinburg. 

 Creating a cardboard bear trap, spray painted gold, of course. 

It was a great week with many trips to swim and some late-night animating with a corn-dog.  We'll be back soon.  Check our youtube page for the final version of the animation.