Masha du Toit

I’ve just returned from a long research leave during which I worked on an exhibition. I dont like showing my work before the opening night, but here is a sneak peek.

My exhibition is in three parts. First, I wrote some very short stories. Then I created the characters in these stories as puppets. Now I am creating small drawn animations of each of these characters. I am going to show you a bit of two of the characters. There are five of them at the moment.

Here is Benjamin.

His story starts like this:

Benjamin walks home from school. His house is not very far, only a couple of blocks. He takes the same route he always does, crossing as few streets as possible. He walks balancing on the curb. His teacher told him how some other little boy, walking along the curb had fallen off and been crushed by a passing car. This worries him, but there are no cars. At the end of the block he jumps off the curb and carefully crosses the road…

And so on.  First draft, you understand, still to be re-written.

And this guy sort of appeared without a story. I mean – I know what his story is but still have to write it down. He also has no name. Any suggestions?

The animations still have a long way to go but here is a screen shot. Looks a lot like the previous screen shot, but actually, a lot has happened in the interim. Like – things have started moving.

I have changed my mind about the gallery I’m exhibiting in so at the moment I don’t know when the opening will be. But there is a good chance that the digital component (the animations) will be hosted on ColourLovers.com.

So I will have a physical exhibition in a gallery, and a virtual exhibition on-line.

And that’s all for now…