Jo Lawrence - Animator in Residence 2008

Jo Lawrence, a new media artist and animation director was Animator in Residence at the V&A in summer 2008. Originally interested in line-drawn illustration, her work developed to encompass collage, puppets and stop-frame animation

Archive – this blog closed in 2008

New Glover

Thursday, December 4, 2008 - 11:38
My intention before I leave the studio in two weeks is to make various props for the film, including one giant glove 4 metres high, resolve Glover's mask, make a few reptilian gloves and a world map which shows the edge of the world. This is for the scene where Glover falls asleep (in storyboard below). For the huge four metre high glove I needed a snakeskin or image at the highest...
Read More

Glove Museum

Wednesday, November 5, 2008 - 11:59
My visit to the Dents Factory and Museum in Warminster felt like a step back in time. John Cundick (Quality controller at Dents) showed me the glove collection, and presented me with lots of extraordinary curiosities, much of it stored in dark plans chests, and every glove had a story attached. There were the smallest gloves in the world, a bit larger than a stamp, the blue suede gloves belonging...
Read More

Finding Glover

Thursday, October 2, 2008 - 10:02
Gloves from the V&A collection I made an appointment to view the glove collection held by the V&A. The curator Louisa Collins unwrapped glove after glove from its protective tissue from inside dark oak drawers. Some gloves were very unusual, some with graphic bold shapes and patterns, some miraculously stitched miniature leather gloves for dolls and children, even a pink nylon arm length...
Read More

Glover's world

Monday, September 15, 2008 - 16:18
I decided that to make a complete film was ultimately a more rewarding use of my time at the V&A. I canâ??t seem to help my enthusiasm for working with narrative. Storytelling is something I find completely absorbing. The process of developing an idea into a film for me is very much like producing the ideal environment for a chemical reaction in a laboratory. The Ebstorf map, the gloves and...
Read More

The hand at the edge of the world

Tuesday, August 12, 2008 - 15:06
Since I have been at the V&A I have been following a kind of trail. I have always been drawn to the curious or odd aspects to inanimate objects and their stories. The prospect of finding starting points for film-making was daunting, there are 4.5 million objects in the museum and I could make a film about anything. A random walk through the galleries became potentially hazardous, often...
Read More

Archive - this blog closed in 2008

Jo Lawrence - Animator in Residence 2008

Jo Lawrence graduated from Kingston University with a BA in Graphic Design and worked as a freelance illustrator for advertising, publishing, packaging, and editorial clients. Her work evolved to incorporate collage before developing into three dimensions almost by stealth. The playful exploration of constructing puppets from found objects took on a life of its own and an experimental collection of puppets sold unexpectedly well in San Francisco, prompting a total change of career direction. Several more puppet collections and many exhibitions followed: Contemporary Applied Arts, New York International Gift Fair, Craft2eu, Galerie Handwerk, San Francisco International Gift Fair, and Flow Gallery.

The figures already suggested a capacity for movement so studying animation seemed inevitable. Three stop-frame animation films produced during her MA Animation and Illustration course at Kingston – ‘Red Thread’, ‘0800’, and ‘Zeuxis’ – were screened at many festivals including Annecy, London Animation Festival, Onedotzero (ICA), Edinburgh, New York International Children's Film Festival.

In 2006, Jo was Animator in Residence at the National Media Museum, Bradford, and subsequently commissioned by Channel 4. In 2007 'Glow' was screened on Channel 4, and in 2008 it was nominated for the shortlist for The British Animation Awards, and later screened at festivals at Annecy, Stuttgart, Zagreb,Melbourne International Film Festival, and Australian International Film Festival.

Monthly archive