Art & Life with Jared D. Weiss

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jared D. Weiss.

Jared, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
I was born in New Jersey. I went to school in New York City, where I made an animated short film, “Transmission,” which screened around the world while I moved back to New Jersey in 2012. A year later, I lived in the woods in Vermont for a month or so and moved back to New Jersey. Six months after that, having just got my first car, I drove cross-country in a week to accept a job offer in Hollywood at an animation studio. After two years, that studio collapsed and I became a full-time freelancer from my apartment in Glendale and returned to making short films. Since 2016, I’ve been making at least one short film a year by myself, including “Brazey,” “A Message For Brazey,” and “Frog Dog Log,” all of which have screened globally and have afforded me opportunities that my paid work never had. In addition to continuing my personal and freelance work, I am currently the storyboard director on Adult Swim’s “Lazor Wulf.”

Can you give our readers some background on your art?
As stated in my intro, my primary output of personal work is animated short films. I started making these again because working in the Hollywood animation industry became creatively stifling and I needed an outlet free of corporate and uncreative input that would let me express and experiment via visual mediums the way I saw fit. With each film/project, I strive to teach myself something new, that while the final output my not fit the typical “experimental” visual standard, the process for me ultimately is an experiment. Sometimes this means using different software to make a film, or sometimes it means making a film by improvising every step, from music, to story, to visuals, and so forth.

One of these projects, “Brazey,” is truly the embodiment of that idea. “Brazey” began when a friend confused part of a character I was drawing at a party and that drawing took on a whole new life when I decided at that moment to draw this character on a daily basis. From this, I started a Tumblr where I post the daily images, which started as illustrations in Google Hangouts’ now defunct drawing tool, to making two short films, to constructing physical creations of Brazey out of food and other assorted items. Through this, I started a project called “The Brazey Exchange,” where I invite anyone to make Brazey out of any non-drawn mediums, send me a photo of the creation, and in exchange, I mail them a fully personalized illustration of Brazey, absolutely free.

As someone who doesn’t wish to contribute to mass-production and wasted materials, the entire “Brazey” project made me realize that I could make obtaining unique art accessible, free of unnecessary and bloated financial exchange, and make it a fulfilling creative process for all parties involved all at the same time.

In your view, what is the biggest issue artists have to deal with?
The biggest challenge facing artists today is most likely the cost of survival and understanding what that actually means. How that translates for every individual is subjective, so I can’t speak to that. But for me personally, it means living within my means, not having extraneous costs or financially consumable hobbies, and fully understanding what creatively makes me happy when finances aren’t a factor.

If anything, the reliance of major corporations to provide me work can be frustrating, even if it means I can afford to take a few months off and then make something of my own. Ideally, I would love to make a survival allowance off of my short films, but I’m also hesitant to give up my personal creativity and time in order to do so, nor do I believe merchandising to the be-all-end-all to achieving that goal.

What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
All of my short films can be found on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/jareddweiss
My portfolio can be found on Tumblr: https://jareddweiss.tumblr.com/
Anything additional can be found on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jdweiss25/ and https://www.instagram.com/itsbrazey/
To support me, contact and hire me: [email protected]
Or, you can buy a print-on-demand item: https://jareddweiss.threadless.com/

Image Credit:
Jared D. Weiss

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