Today we’d like to introduce you to Andy Bella.
Andy, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I’m a character animation student currently studying at CalArts in Valencia. I’m about to go into my third year of study there, and I’m excited. Within these past three years of my study, I feel like I’ve grown leaps and bounds… both in art and as a person! I feel like every day I learn something new about myself, what I like, and what I want to do… it’s a real blessing. Now, more than ever, I’m excited to see what the future will bring, despite current circumstances.
When I first started drawing, I loved art because of the connections it helped me make with others. I was originally born in Connecticut, though I lived in Florida in my early, little baby years. I lived with my Abuela and Abuelo there, along with my mom. I think it was around here that I first started drawing… a very strong memory I have is showing my Abuela a colored pencil drawing I made of Link from The Legend of Zelda, which I played religiously with my cousin. She always took the time and care to compliment my kid efforts, ask me about the character, and so on. I loved that more than anything; art could be more than a drawing to me in that way. It could be a conversation with love, interest, and care. As an adult, I’m tremendously grateful for my family’s encouragement and support of my early drawings — I don’t think I’d be doing what I’m doing now if they had just said “Oh… that’s cool, I guess.” or “I can’t tell who that is.” They always made an effort to tell me they LOVED it even if it was chicken scratch, and that made me start to believe that all art had the capability of being special to someone and exist beyond lines on paper.
Eventually, though, I moved back to Connecticut to start school. At that time, I felt very unmoored… I had to say goodbye to my Abuela, Abuelo, and cousins that loved and encouraged me so dearly and struggled with adjusting to a new school and the life that it brought. In my drawing, I was able to remember the fond memories I had with my mom’s side of the family by feeding the interests I had back then; I kept playing similar video games (usually in the Nintendo family — Legend of Zelda continued to be a favorite among Pokemon and Animal Crossing). When I got chances to visit my family in Florida again, I’d try to save my drawings and show them my efforts. Drawing, in this way, could be both an interest and a living memory.
Although I struggled at school, I eventually came to love Connecticut and the places I would spend my time at. My father was a commercial fisherman, and his family had lived in Connecticut for a couple of generations. I loved his job — working in the Long Island Sound, first as a lobster fisherman, and later as a captain of a commercial clam boat. It felt special and intrinsically worthwhile; working with your hands, connected to the land you live on, giving a purpose for your living there. It helped me feel a sense of belonging in Connecticut even when I felt alone otherwise. As an adult, when it comes to drawing settings, making characters, or otherwise creating a world, I often find myself making stories that take place in Connecticut, too.
In my own time outside of school, I kept my interest in video games, and eventually found a game I’d say… “changed my life”…? Woah, it feels heavy to say that, but it’s true. It was Portal 2! I played it around middle school, and it entirely felt like something I had never experienced before. The writing and gameplay are absolutely exquisite, fine-tuned, and funny! The world felt big, awe-inspiring, but lived in. And the characters were memorable — so memorable, in fact, that for a period of about two years I would exclusively make Flipnote animations of the characters on my Nintendo DSi. I shared it online (at the time, through a kid-friendly forum called “Flipnote Hatena” intended to be used with the DSi’s Flipnote app) and connected to my first real close friend, Adie (we’re still pals!!) I loved the game and animating silly things with its characters because of the charm it had on its own and the friendship it helped me foster.
In school, I kept drawing as a hobby, but it was really my parents who helped me see it as a viable future for myself; they entirely supported it as a feasible career, even if they didn’t know where it would lead me. They knew that it made me happy, and that was enough — they encouraged me to pursue that as a job. I’m, again, tremendously grateful for this. Truly. Because of this, I found my way to wanting to study animation from my intersection of “hobby” and “feasible job pursuits” in my life; while I would make fan-animations in my off time, my mom worked in TV entertainment herself (at the time, in marketing) so the possibility of a career in TV animation didn’t seem impossible.
So far, my study of animation has been a blessing, I’d say… each year, I feel like I learn more about myself and what art I’d like to make. I hope to keep learning all my life, of course, but I feel like I’ve grown leaps and bounds since the beginning of my study. I constantly find myself remembering my original joys in drawing, and hope that I can make art and work on projects that similarly fosters connection and belonging in the same way I enjoyed when I was a kid.
Great, 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?
Let’s see… I remember I really struggled in high school. I’m almost 21, so that time isn’t too far away from me yet. While I had struggled with feeling like I belonged when I first moved to Connecticut, I felt entirely out of place by the time I entered high-school. At the time, I was going to a private Catholic school, and tuition was a sizable expense for my family. A big fear of mine at the time was the idea of “losing” that money or the opportunity of going there if I were to get in trouble, make things difficult, or otherwise encounter problems with the school.
It was hard for me not to walk on eggshells because of this; even if I didn’t make trouble in a regular kid way, I was always worried the school could make a problem for me as it was a tangibly homophobic and transphobic space. While individual teachers could have the potential to be understanding, their understanding was never a guarantee as the school was under the jurisdiction of the Catholic Church (of Bridgeport) — a couple of teachers reminded students of this, saying they couldn’t openly support their LGBT students with posters, conferences, or other clear language as it would be “going against the church”.
While this environment of course is backward (especially in the late 2010s, in an otherwise progressive state) I felt particularly afraid as some teachers would openly voice their disgust at the idea of gay or trans people without repercussion within their teaching. At the time, I worried that if a particular teacher like that had a problem with me, even if I did everything right in class, they could push hard enough for my admission to be withdrawn (the school politely called this “not being invited” back for the following semester) — potentially costing my family a significant amount, and able to put my already hardworking parents in a tailspin.
While I was thankfully able to find a core group of friends in the school who understood me and made me feel welcome, the threat posed by this situation made me afraid to trust any teachers or adults around me. I had a hard time connecting with my family, especially with my mom; while she had enrolled me in this school to help me best pursue whatever future I wanted, I struggled to envision a completely safe and good future at all — I imagined I would be living with prejudiced individuals like the teachers I knew for the rest of my life, like the world even after my departure from the school would be the same environment as it was from within. I kept to myself more than I ever had before.
I don’t think this experience positively affected my art at all, though I did use my art at the time to help me express my emotions internally when I couldn’t reliably open up to adults around me. I found a great amount of comfort in writing my own characters and stories in my off time, using them as a vessel for my feelings in a fictional environment. They talked like me, looked like me, had similar struggles — except, in their world, I could make them speak and act through their problems without consequence. Making stories where my characters could acknowledge and work through the same feelings I had became a great way for me to express myself when I was too afraid to open up to others. Looking back, I’m grateful I spent my time on this.
In regards to actual visual output, though, my art definitely suffered because of the experience; similarly worried that I could lose my family a lot of money if I didn’t pursue opportunities I had been granted or studied to the best of my ability, I unfortunately drew within extremely limited ideas of visual art. My work at the time was “good” to me if it showcased technical ability, which I was happy to build, but I lacked a voice. Or, at least I think I did. Perhaps my feelings came through every now and then… but overall, I didn’t try to pursue my interests or a style for myself, thinking they might hurt my chances to get into an art school if I didn’t put technical skills first and foremost.
One of the reasons I’m so happy in college is because I don’t have to worry about these things anymore, basically (?!) My parents pay for my tuition, and, while I want to make sure that they know their investment is worthwhile in my development, I don’t have to worry about losing the opportunities I have by the hand of someone malicious in the same nature I was worried about in high school. The teachers that I’ve gotten to know at CalArts are all very supportive not only of my growth and art but of my mental health and future as a working individual.
With this, I feel so much more free to pursue my interests and express my emotions openly in my art than I ever have before… which is great! I think, looking back at the way I drew back then and now, there is a tangible sense of growth. I feel like I’m finally in an environment where making art can be fun, and that I’m fully able to express myself through my work in a way I haven’t been able to before… so I’m very happy!
Please tell us more about your art.
As a student, it’s hard to narrow down exactly what it is that I’d like to do within animation… every avenue in animation seems exciting to me! That being said, I think I’d like to specialize in storyboarding. This is a tough for me to say because storyboarding takes so much time and effort and feels entirely new to me most of the time. Regardless, I’m really drawn to it because it easily falls within my interests of writing my own stories and making characters; getting to decide how a character chooses to act or move is very fulfilling to me.
The downside of it taking so long and learning through it for the first time means I unfortunately don’t have much to show at the moment… though I hope that within this next upcoming year, I will have more! Lots of personal projects are moreso in writing phases for me at the moment. I’m okay with taking time with that; building a scene or plot is very fun for me, and I’d like to put my best effort forward with how a story plays out in writing before I even begin drawing.
One project I have a bit of work to show is from my planned thesis film, currently titled “Time-Hop Hero” (though that might change!), ideally coming out in 2022. I really love this project, hence why I’m getting a bit of an early start on it now. It’s based on similar ideas and stories I made for myself in high school, which is tremendously fun to revisit as an adult. Without giving too much info away, it’s about two teens named Alyssa and Gabby trying to figure out what their futures will hold when time travel makes their adult selves present in their current lives. I’m excited to share more as time goes on. Wish me luck!
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
A childhood memory I love… well, this one isn’t exactly “childhood”, but a lot of my favorite memories come from spending time with my best friend from back home, Olivia Porretta. We met when we were both about… 14 or 15? And we both loved drawing and animation (she’s also an animation major, too!) She’s crazy talented, incredibly driven, so deeply caring and overall just an absolute joy to be around. I’m going to sound silly saying this, but I always tell her her brain is huge because it’s true. She really just has so many good thoughts in there. Like, so many… I’m getting off track. There are so many treasured memories with her that it’s hard to pick just ONE to talk about… though I’ll try my best.
I’ll absolutely never forget our time spent playing the games of the Metal Gear Solid series. We started with Metal Gear Solid for Playstation, and have since worked our way up to more recent titles, though we haven’t played the fifth game in the series just yet. I remember staying up late hours when she would sleepover at my place to finish it, too invested to put the controller down. Whenever one of us would struggle with the game, we would switch off to let the other take a turn — and work through the story together. This was crazy fun, especially when the story would get scary or have twists and turns we couldn’t predict (the series is known for being a bit meta at times). We were in the game’s crazy little world together.
But the fun with the series never ended even when we finished each respective game; we would always make fun for ourselves drawing silly comics or pictures of the characters. A more recent memory I shared with Olivia was making thumbnails for a scene of two of its characters, Solid Snake and Otacon, going through all-too-casual and domestic conversations amidst their dangerous lives in the game. Dialogue like “hey, Snake, when was the last time you went swimming? One time I went, when I was a kid, and I got tossed around in a wave so hard my eyelid got stuck in my skull. It wasn’t a big deal though, I was fine, it popped back after like two seconds” amidst Snake jumping around in deafening explosions while dodging heat-seeking missiles and waves of gunfire. Silly things like that! We thumbnailed it on a train to New York City, similarly taking turns drawing whenever the other would get tired or not know what to write next. Agh!! I miss her. I hope I can make many more memories like this with Olivia in the future!!
Contact Info:
- Website: andybesito.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andybesito/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/andybesito
Suggest a story: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
