CATEGORIES

Got a Girl Crush On: Prudence Fenton (Animator, Director, Producer, Imagineer)

Animation Director, Pee-wee’s Playhouse (1986-1991); Executive Producer, Liquid Television (1991-1994)

Not long after the debut of MTV, my grandfather called the cable company and asked if he could have the channel scrambled. In the early days MTV was a showcase of bizarre animation, giving airtime to experimental work. At the time Prudence Fenton was a young animator just out of art school, hired by MTV to make station IDs. She continued throughout her career to push ideas and technologies as far as she could. By 1986 it worked! Far-out creativity made its way into network television with the legendary Saturday morning children’s program, Pee-wee’s Playhouse, where Prudence Fenton worked as the animation director. She brought the Penny Cartoon and other stop-motion wonders to the show.

Then in 1991, along with Japhet Asher, she worked to make Liquid Television a reality, which further embraced the experimental by commissioning independent animators to make short segments and creating a venue in which to show them. With Weird Vibes, the resurgence of Liquid Television, and new episodes of Beavis and Butt-Head, maybe television is ready to get back into that territory again.

When I called her up asking for an interview, she was surprised I knew who she was. I thought, “Shouldn’t everyone?” She is a pioneer.

VICE: How did you start working for MTV?
Prudence Fenton: In art school I started doing my own animations by doing things with flip cards and shooting on Super 8. From there, I was hired by a company called Broadcast Arts that was about to do station IDs for MTV.

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Got a Girl Crush On: Nora Herting’s undercover artist work at JC Penney Portrait Studios

Studio portraits don’t document an event; the making of the photograph is the event. In order to create a series titled Free Sitting, artist Nora Herting got a job as a trade photographer at a portrait studio in a JC Penney department store in Ohio.

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(via hyperallergic)

Got a Girl Crush On: Maira Kalman’s re-imagining (and re-imaging!) of Michael Polan’s Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual

Advice on eating your grandparents probably lived by now paired with whimsical illustrations—what’s not to love?

**bonus: Maira also designed one of my favorite umbrellas!

(via 1988-2011)

Got a Girl Crush On: design duo, Domestic Construction

Trish Andersen and Maureen Walsh know how to take craft to a big and badass scale!

(**editor’s note: say hello to newest contributor is GAGC, Cassie!**)

Got a Girl Crush On: The protagonists of sci-fi children’s novel Wollstonecraft

Their mystery-solving adventures may be a figment of author Jordan Stratford’s imagination, but the ladies who inspired their characters are all too real: Ada Byron, widely considered to be the world’s first computer programer, and noted English novelist Mary Shelley. Stratford describes his work as a “pro-math, pro-science, pro-history and pro-literature adventure novel for and about girls.” He also says he wants his nine-year-old daughter to grow up to “be a mad scientist and take over the world.” We approve on both counts. 

Editions of the book can be pre-ordered on Kickstarter.

(**editor’s note: say “hi” to our other latest contributor, Brooke!**)

Got a Girl Crush On: Yayoi Kusama

After crashing the boys club that was the ‘60’s art world in New York, Yayoi has spent decades establishing herself as Japan’s most prominent contemporary artist. With her current exhibition at Tate Modern, its undeniable that the girl’s still got it (and oh my god, how great is that hair?!).

-b