“Cup of Ambition”

Materials Used: Dry Coffee Grounds
This project was created based on the Dolly Parton anthem, “9 to 5”. With a bag of coffee that had gone stale in the pantry and the inability to get Ms. Parton’s words out of my head, I set on crafting this piece. I utilized a reverse stop motion technique in which I created the lettering in full first, writing out the entire phrase. I then nudged each letter towards each other until it created a mass that could be brushed into the empty coffee cup. I captured each frame and reversed the animation to present the illusion of letters emerging from a full cup of coffee.

“That Home Cooked Food Mood”

Created for the series Apart: Posters from a Social Distance
This piece was created at the onset of the pandemic to raise funds to support the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. Paradowski Creative organized an effort to create posters and developed a virtual gallery space. This piece was arranged by hand, shot on a neutral background, and digitally cleaned up. I used the photographed piece to digitally create a layered (mock) stop motion piece to use for social media promotion of the poster series.

Materials: dill, corn kernels, brown rice, black beans, turmeric



“Break Up”

This piece was created as a study of transforming a solid object (a bar of chocolate) into a shape (heart) and steadily breaking smaller pieces into type (break up). This was inspired by both the “breaking up” of a bar of chocolate, “breaking” a heart, and the intersection of the two. This project involved both moving elements into place throughout the stop motion but also reducing pieces into finer morsels as the piece progressed.

Materials used: chocolate, butcher knife

“Pop Corn”

This piece was inspired by some corn kernels not popping in the microwaved popcorn bag. This piece was an exploration of words morphing into each other and then back to the original word. I added the element of popped popcorn as it progressed to give the illusion of the kernels exploding.

Materials: corn kernels, popped popcorn

“The Four Main Food Groups”

This piece was created as part of a holiday self-promotional mailer. Drawing on one of the holiday classics, “Elf”, the text of this phrase dictated the materials used. Red and green M&Ms were meticulously placed to spell out “candy”, candy canes shaped and sparingly broken to spell “candy canes”, candy corn (which is surprisingly hard to find in December) arranged directionally. The final touch was a mixture of chocolate syrup (for color) and molasses (for viscosity). The piece was arranged and shot on a (formerly) clean sheet of posterboard and digitally arranged with holiday elements that frame the type. This piece was then printed on postcards and mailed.

Materials: candy, candy canes, candy corn, and (almost) syrup