71. Bridge
How we mourn across grief. Fruitions, sketching in words, an animated vignette. The beginnings of a new essay.
“While grief is a feeling, mourning is both an action and a state of mind.”
—Summerlin Leigh Page, “Stubborn Back-looking Ghosts”
In January of 2023, I was struggling to get back up after being knee-capped by the universe throughout the latter half of 2022. I remember blearily joking to a friend: ”I hope some good art comes out of all this.”
It’s taken traversal through periods of rage, productivity, and absence of feeling, to shift into what feels decidely like a bounded timespace of different peers. I’ve moved into a different era; a new country.
The last two years have at times felt endless. In retrospect, they’re composed of tangible and countable things: a series of spiral-bound notebooks. Photographs on my phone. Text messages. These very entries.
They prostrate themselves end to end, patiently, with method—self-laying stones of a long night’s bridge.
It takes time. But I’m across.
This section is for new folks. Everyone else, feel free to skip to In the Studio.
A warm welcome to hundreds (!) of new subscribers. You likely found me through the recently-published essay on Roxane Gay’s The Audacity, “Other Mother.” Thanks for reading, and for being here.
I started this newsletter, The Line Between (or TLB), in 2021 as a way to share the behind-the-scenes of whatever I’m working on. At the time, it was an animated short film, followed by another short film—but current projects have expanded to include non-film work, such as essays.
TLB remains a visual newsletter about life as a creative process. How I make, whatever it happens to be at the moment, and the personal context which provides color.
Many issues have content behind a paywall because:
Paying subscribers (Members) get bonus content and exclusive access
I want to narrowcast more personal stuff to a smaller, known audience
Some previews can’t yet be shared publicly
Misc legal compliance
Still, everyone will almost always get one micro essay and visuals—something that feels, I hope, like a complete experience within a larger one.
Updates go out every other Tuesday evening ET. The current format is something like:
Preamble
A micro essay or “provocation.”In the Studio
An update on what I’m working on.Provisions
Stuff I took in (books, films, exhibits, food) or was inspired by. Often, I throw in a NYC gem for locals.Closing
A final micro essay except, e.g., when the issue runs long (like today).
Memberships, by the way, help me pay for things like studio equipment (paper, ink, hardware), software updates (Adobe Creative Suite is not cheap), and submission fees (could be $50+ per festival)—so if you’re able to support my work financially, I thank you. More on paid/free tiers. Coffee is always welcome.
In the studio
As I mentioned above, my essay “Other Mother” was published in Roxane Gay’s The Audacity last Wednesday:
Pub day was beautiful and reinforced why I think I make or write anything: to help people—including myself—feel seen.
I’m grateful to Roxane for considering and supporting my work. She’s an advocate for writers early in their career, and compensates generously at $1500 per essay. The entire process is a well-oiled machine, with project manager and co-editor Megan Pillow providing guidance throughout.
Incidentally, “Other Mother” has come to feel like a complement, or companion, to my latest animated short 엄마 나라 | MOTHER LAND (trailer). This leads to another bit of good news: the film has finally been picked up by a festival! Just last time, I was feeling bummed about lack of traction. Stay tuned for details.
Lastly, I’ve been invited to speak at New Narratives: Korean American Art and Activism.
It will be a panel discussion and virtual fundraiser for NAKASEC and Adoptees for Justice. Fellow panelist and artist Eunsoo Jeong sums up, in her classic fashion, what it’ll be about. Join us on May 16, 2024, 8pm ET.
Finally, for some animation behind-the-scenes.
I hope this is a fun peek at something I do that may not be common among animators (I could be wrong): when I sketch out a scene to music, I almost always do the first pass in words. This is the most natural way for me to get from idea to image (moving or still):
Listen to a segment of music.
“Watch” what happens. (I kind of zone out with my eyes open, though I don’t have the kind of synesthesia where I can literally see the music. Rather, images spark up in my mind.)
Write notes.
Rewind, repeat, refine.
Draw.
Some images come right away; others I need to coax into focus. I do this by flipping between listening and writing, over and over again, as quickly as possible. Speed stymies overthinking, and I keep flipping and tuning; rewinding, and repeating; until there’s enough resolution for me to draw.
Here’s a 20 minute session of me doing this, at 20x (about 1 minute). The song is “Love to Death” by Jo Yeong-wook, from Park Chan-wook’s Decision to Leave soundtrack:
19 seconds of this in real time, where I dial in on an image:
I run through the song to confirm my notes at the end. Also in real time, about a minute long:
I translated this into a rough animated sketch, up to phase 3. Of course things shift as they realize—drawing is an iteration. The end caps are especially rough, but I think the general feeling is there and the sketch is at good enough resolution for clean-up.
Here’s a GIF of what phase 1 and 2 are looking like:
Members, enjoy the entire sequence below, to music. Plus: Provisions.