Conversations with Kelly Jean Janich

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kelly Jean Janich.

Hi Kelly Jean, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Hi!

My name is Kelly Jean Angeles Janich and I am a lifelong 2D visual storytelling artist who focuses on animation, film, and creative writing. Graduating high school 2016, I sought out to improve my drawing skills at community college because I didn’t feel ready for art school, lacked the knowledge of state schools in California, and was stuck in the repercussions of family childhood trauma. Coming from a divorced, mixed racial parent dynamic with a Pilipino mother and a Russian-American father, it was difficult to trust either parent, living with doubts for most of my adolescent life, as I became the detective on my own life- I found myself wanting to disappear at an early age.

As a high school student attending house punk shows, hanging with a group of misfits, I didn’t really see myself doing anything after I graduated. I knew though I loved animation. I always always loved cartoons from all networks growing up. They have always given me happiness, inspiration, and something to look forward to- and still do to this day.
Whether film shorts, tv series, or features, I am drawn to the art medium because of the ability to keep attention, to be kept in people’s memory, and to become a form of archival art for history to come.

In my last semester at California State University Long Beach, I am taking the opportunity to make my senior film into my dream cartoon pilot Luna Fauna. The path I was placed in, the life my mother made for me, gives me a unique experience and perspective that I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t gone the way I did.

Creating what I thought were life-long meaningful connections fell apart, visits to the hospital, feeling like the villain, cursed- were gradually lifted through the self-fulfillment of storytelling in cinema, art, literature, astronomy, and flora & fauna. Inspiring myself with folklore, astrophysics, and animals, transcribed through the language of poetry and autofiction, I focus on the sequential art of telling personal experiences with a twist into cartoon planetary, earthy narratives.

This idea of a cosmic, hellish, animal cartoon first came to me in Spring 2017. Luna Fauna is a fusion of cosmic space society, hell-demon-supernatural beings, and earthly animals accompanied by mythology stemming from the Earth Mother, all coming together to make up the cartoon universe. With the narrative focusing on three separate animals, they all become connected by the fates of fortune playing a cosmic board game which brings chaos in all their lives at the same time. Pulling from my experiences with being best friends with your worst enemy, being detached to my father, and wanting to do anything for my mother, all tie together in mid/early 2010s high school experiences going to warehouse, garage, and venue post-punk shows, specifically taking place in LA County. With the life given to me, I hope to tell a story that captures a moment in time, one where me and those in my lifetime live beyond

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It definitely hasn’t always been a smooth road. When I was in the middle of the 4th grade I become detached as my parents divorced and I had to testify in front of courts and stuff. So many social workers. I think I love screamo/hardcore/skramz music so much because that’s how I feel- that I want to scream and drown out what everyone is telling me to feel or believe in. Nothing captures quite how I feel like Matsuri’s “breathe out your soul(pt 11).”

I always really liked to keep to myself growing up after. Spoke only when spoken too. I remember the 7th grade I failed algebra because I wouldn’t be paying attention because I was doodling the whole time. 8th grade I stopped doodling, and somehow did well in math like wow how did that happen!

Since I was before K-12 I loved drawing. However middle school and high school there were limited opportunities to help foster what I wanted to do. I couldn’t really do art class until junior year of high school, but I think I somehow managed to get in sophomore year. Senior year after learning about outside art classes, I was finally able to improve my self-taught skills.

Community college came, torn between illustration or animation… however after so many events I grew to learn that animation is made for me. Around the same time, the psychedelics took hold- as if someone pressing the reset button on my life and I had to think and feel everything I have ever experienced up to that point. My childhood trauma, was met face to face as I would sob, cry, in a manic frenzy.

This is all good things.

I’d rather feel everything, even all at once, than to feel compliancy and detachment to my experiences.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a story artist, creative writer, and animation filmmaker. I appreciate physical media and I hope to extend the knowledge and history I know on to those who have yet to know through my visually creative ways of expression. 2019 I started Risograph printing. I am fond of the textures, the colors, and the vibrancy of color layering. This natural artistic quality of the riso, elevates my subject matter and communicates a daydreamy emotion through the physicality of the inks. I combine my story art and creative writing skills into publishing zines and illustrations, often favoring the DIY. Sequential art gives me the most satisfaction, as I can abstract meaning to the juxtaposition of scenes.

Cartoons have always been a source of inspiration for me, especially growing up in times when my surroundings weren’t the best. I feel motivation in watching animated media, whether short films, series, or a feature. I find them to be my favorite way to receive stories.

Right now I am working on making my dream cartoon into a reality through the opportunity of a senior film at CSULB. It is called “Luna Fauna.”

Whether it’s “Luna Fauna,” zines, illustrations, or poetry- I strive to tell my personal experiences through allegory, metaphor, and symbols, often favoring the mythological, cosmic, and slice of life.

What were you like growing up?
Growing up I was always shy, ever since I was a little girl up until high school. High school I wasn’t scared to talk to my peers, but I just didn’t know what to say. I was terrified of talking in front of the class, until I noticed- that when it is required of me to carry the team suddenly I can talk and present without any heartbeats. Notably was a junior year math class we all had to group up and give a presentation on a chapter, when it came down to the moment I naturally took leadership. 18 + 19 working as a cashier at Office Max in Baldwin Park and as a ramen waitress did help me open up, but my fear of public speaking went away for the most part when I was around 23 after being in college for quite some time. Starting 18 at community, now 27 at CSULB- the journey has been a long one.

Interpersonal communication and repeatedly pitching my ideas and talking about my art has really helped me learn to yap. Now I love yapping. I find ease in meeting new people and I look forward to it!

I started vending heavily after co-vid, 2021. Pop-up art shops around southern CA became a passion hobby that I still love to continue to this day and in the future. Welcoming people, introducing them to my art, explaining my thoughts, experiences, and techniques, it’s all something I’ve grown to love to do.

From 4th grade to senior year I lived on tumblr. I’d scroll for hours, talk to my online friends, read a bunch of webcomics and play video games. Digital art for me started on a track pad in the mid 2000’s as YouTube first started. I made so many animations on YouTube back then for warrior cats. It’s all been deleted though. Same for tumblr.

My emotions growing up, and still to this day, I feel are captured well in a poem I wrote:

“My Emotions Are In a Box Five Feet Away From Me

my emotions
remain contained in a small box
detached
five feet away from me

to open it
would be opening
an endless outpour of polychromatic light
that generates a vortex
acting as a hurricane
causing havoc
ruining everything
Whether I like it or Not
I can’t help it
Besides shutting it

keeping it closed.

-12.06.19 ”

Contact Info:

• Website: https://kllyjjn.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kllyjjn/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-jean-janich-a115a8254/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@kllyjjn