Striking “Creative Oil” – Taylor Lee Gets Animated

By Melissa Dorsch

Taylor Lee, HUG grant recipient and painter extraordinaire, found that she had a lot of time on her hands once COVID-19 hit. Frustrated that she couldn’t express all of the ideas that were swirling in her head through her usual method of painting, she shifted to stop motion animation. Since she had nothing but time on her hands, the time-intensive task of stop motion seemed like the perfect medium to tell the story of how she was feeling.

“A lot of my work is specifically about emotional extremes because it is inspired by my experience with bipolar disorder and panic attacks, and I think that animation is a great medium to use to express those roller coasters,” states Lee.

She used her HUG money to rent a camera to shoot her animations. “I learned that you can actually make really interesting animations with very few tools! You don’t need a professional set, and you can get by with a basic camera — even a smartphone — and homemade props” says Lee when asked what she learned while making her clips.

In the interview above, filmed several weeks ago, Taylor talks with Tim Miner about how the discomfort of isolation led her to explore different sides of her creativity and how she has struck “creative oil.”

Watch Taylor’s Animations

She currently has five short films, each under 60 seconds, on her website and is looking to do some longer episodes and collaborations with other artists over the summer. In her words, “I felt that this short, bite-sized series accurately documented my experience of changing emotions over the course of quarantine.