Profile Of An Artist w/ Mark Neeley Interview
When and where were you born? What was your childhood like growing up? When did you first begin creating art and animations? Was this something that was relevant around your household growing up?
I was born in 1990 and grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. My hometown was in a small, rural area on the west side of town. It was very conservative with a lot of backwards cultural attitudes, and I did not enjoy my time going to school there. But after my parents divorced early on, we moved into my grandparents' amazing old farmhouse on a beautiful street. No one else in my family were artists, though my parents were always supportive of my interests. Some of my earliest memories involve animation; I was just always mesmerized by it. And from a really early age, I was obsessed with the process of how it was made… Almost as much as the cartoons themselves. As a kid, it's hard to comprehend that it is made by humans with pencils and not magic or something. So I used to get local library books about DIY animation methods, and made really primitive flipbooks all the time. In that era when animation was still mostly all done the old traditional way, you really couldn't even access the proper supplies to animate unless you lived where the industries were in places like Los Angeles or New York. For me, the passion just never left. I did go through stretches where there wasn't much artistic creativity, but I always came back. My wife is a fine arts graduate, and I think when we met, that reinvigorated my desire to animate as well. It's always that struggle of attempting to intellectualize animation as an art form, far too many stereotype it as disposable children's media. To me, it's the ultimate art form given all of the disciplines that it encompasses.
Do you have any siblings? What would you and your friends do for fun growing up? Who were some of your earliest influences in your formative years? Who would you say has impacted you the most as far as the directions you’ve taken with your work over the years?
I have one older sister. I was always drawing growing up, and was a big hockey and baseball fan. In high school was when I got really into music. Cincinnati has a great musical history dating back to King Records and sixties institutions like the Ludlow Garage. There was a real alternative music scene happening there when I was growing up in the nineties, with local bands like Afghan Whigs who was the first band to sign with Sub Pop outside of the Pacific Northwest. A great independent radio station called WOXY. Due to it being a small Midwestern city, you had the accessibility to interact with that scene if you wanted to. When I was a teenager amid the big indie movement, I started hanging out at places like Shake It Records, still my favorite store in the world. I started collecting records when I was sixteen, or so… A lot of my teenage years were spent taking road trips with friends to look for records. I saw The National play a lot in small venues prior to blowing up, they are from Cincinnati (but didn't form the band until they relocated to NYC). There's a funny story, in high school my friend's family was doing landscaping for the singer Matt Berninger's mom.
She lived in the same small town as us and knew my friend played guitar, so she would say things like "check out my son's band, they just got written up in Rolling Stone". This was for the Alligator album which ended up being very influential to me. I got somewhat friendly with the band and worked at a music festival that the Dessner brothers put on called MusicNOW… This was 2007, or so. Early on I was inspired by old Hanna-Barbera stuff I would see on television, and artists like Richard Scarry and Tomi Ungerer. When you're very young, it's great because there's no focus on making anything in a particular style and you just draw things exactly as you see it. Once I discovered independent animators from reading those books and so on, it was artists like John and Faith Hubley, Paul Driessen and Caroline Leaf. They were inspiring because you didn't need to be some kind of master draftsman to draw like them, like Disney films. It was understated, clever and visually playful. And of course, there's Tove Jansson and all sorts of stuff from the comics world… So much.
I was first made aware of your wonderful work via the good folks over at AD. How did you initially connect with Justin and those guys creating content for them? What has the experience been like for you? I’m curious to know the process of your animations!
Thank you for the kind words, I'm very proud of my work with Aquarium Drunkard because I had been a fan for so long myself. Let's see... I had been in contact with Justin about my work, and shortly after AD was kind enough to write up my short film called Fragments, which combined animation and 35mm photography shot in LA. The soundtrack was made by my close friend Yohei Shikano, which I think appealed to them. Justin then approached me about creating animation for a project we'd later call the AD Picture Show, sort of like an old 120 Minutes program that combined music videos and footage, plus my own animation. We did the pilot episode and it aired on the Adult Swim simulcast. We have kept doing them since but the cable thing fell through as the pandemic hit. I think one of the things that has made AD such a singular institution is the curated visual aesthetic. I think my style adds something a little different but it also still fits that sensibility. Naturally, I also started writing articles. I try to sometimes do pieces that channel my perspective as an animator and visual artist… For example, I did a long article on the history of Nilsson's The Point film, and the animated soundtrack work of Mark Mothersbaugh and Brian Wilson collaborator Andy Paley. Being a contributor is a total thrill for me, it's an honor because everyone there is so talented and AD is such a respected institution. I'm naturally obsessive about whatever I'm interested in, and heavy digging and research is just second nature. As far as the process goes for the animation, it's done the old traditional way where everything is inked and colored on paper and then shot frame by frame under the camera. Nothing is digital outside of the final editing to extend or cut scenes and such.
You recently released an awesome zine of your art with the folks over at Perpetual Doom. Tell me about that, how did this all come about and what was your process and approach to this project? You also, naturally, do poster designs, t-shirts, etc. I understand you're a huge Soft Machine fan, or did I just make that up!
I made a short film for Perpetual Doom last year, it was a little animated story used as a promo for the latest Lee Baggett album. Lou Crisitello who runs the label was a great guy to work with and they also publish some great books and zines, so I approached Lou about it. I had made these watercolor paintings at a live event at my friends Jon and Julia's studio last summer and they went over really well… Re-creations of various album covers in my own style. Someone suggested I do a little publication of some of them, which was a really fun little project and it came out great. It was hard to choose only twenty covers, of course… But it ended up with everything from Haruomi Hosono to Nick Lowe. That's true, I'm a huge Soft Machine fan. Robert Wyatt is one of my favorite singular musicians and just a highly influential, creative figure to me in general. Actually, the "Shleep" LP cover appears in the Optical Canvas zine.
What have you been up to more recently? Are you currently working on any new projects for the Spring/Summer? Is there anything else you would like to further share with the readers?
I have two huge projects coming this summer that unfortunately I can't mention yet. I will say, one of them combines a publication and my animation work which is very exciting. A few months ago I did a music video for Never Young Beach, a really terrific Japanese band fronted by Yuma Abe... I'm proud of how it came out. Freelance animation and illustration work has been steady and I'm very grateful for that, but I'd also like to make another personal film that I've made a rough storyboard for. My previous short, Fragments, actually aired on PBS last November. Considering it was released right after the pandemic hit, it's nice that it seems to be having an extended life at film festivals and such. I'm always looking forward to future writing opportunities as well.
