Today we’d like to introduce you to Anatola Howard.
Anatola, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
I was born in Seattle, but I spent most of my childhood in lower WA raising Flemish Giant rabbits on my Dad’s tiny farm. Of course, there’s no animation in the countryside so I had to come down to LA to attend school (calarts) and now I’m working at Cartoon Network. Burbank is a nice mix between the countryside and Seattle, I just wish there were seasons!
Can you give our readers some background on your art?
I make comics (published by Shortbox and Youth in Decline) and have animated four short films as well as some video games.
In all my work I try to capture small examples of sincerity. A lot of significant moments we have as people turn out to be sort of ineffable. Feelings are hard to describe and even harder to talk about. So, I try to draw how I think and hope that something about how I see the world translates to someone else.
This way I can easily be understood. Because I was a little lonely back in the country, art has always been my immediate confidante! It keeps me and my feelings grounded. Getting your point across to others- it’s so complicated! I realized back in WA the more I simplified the way I felt by turning my feelings into drawings, the easier it was for me to express something too complicated to explain. When I say “hey, I think this!” and someone sees and says “me too!”, I’m super happy. That communication makes everything worth it!
I just also believe that tiny but valuable memories sort of get pushed to the back of your brain in order for you to move forward, and process new experiences. The more you learn, the more you start to revise your idea of what makes you, you. For me, drawing is the ultimate thumbprint of time, place, and feeling. We can capture things exactly how we once experienced them!
It’s easier now than ever to totally lose track of where exactly you’re at. We’ve got all this entertainment and all these ways to measure how good or bad everything is, we can opt-out of total boredom and stay plugged into this huge global conversation of whatever, and just focus on becoming valuable! There have been plenty of times I caught myself moving from one moment to the next so fast I disregarded myself in favor of efficiency. I want to make art that unearths a person’s deep-rooted memory and provides some kind of comfort through innate validity. We all have nostalgia for a million different shows, foods, childhood toys, but I want to help people remember other stuff that makes them unique, too. Like moments of sadness, happiness, times we have felt self-conscious, or even times we have done something wrong. So many little moments that makeup who we sometimes end up getting lost and forgotten, but those tiny things are our humanity!
Even when the attempted connection falls flat and my point totally isn’t made at all, I still get to have a bunch of fun drawing!
What would you recommend to an artist new to the city, or to art, in terms of meeting and connecting with other artists and creatives?
I think that as long as your point of interaction comes from an honest want to connect, then everything will go smoothly. When someone makes something that really resonates with you, you can reach out, but you’ve got to really mean it! Conversations take up a lot of time! Don’t just fill the air with whatever- what about the art between you and someone else really makes you think? Everything is pretty/exciting/engaging for a reason. Building a “book of contacts” comes naturally with time- but the true friendships you make in art impact you forever, and people won’t forget you after you understand each other.
No matter who you want to talk to, I think everyone just wants a heads up that what they are doing is reading to someone else.
What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
I post doodles daily to my twitter, which also contains links to my portfolio, websites, books, etc. I have all of my short films up on Vimeo!
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/MAROONRACOON
- Other: https://vimeo.com/user51520477
Image Credit:
Images drawn by Anatola Howard
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