Alberta Women Working in Animation Panel: – Heather Kai Smith, Joanne Fisher, Carol Beecher, Wendy Tilby & Amanda Forbis
Presented in Partnership with Quickdraw Animation Society and the National Film Board of Canada
CAROL BEECHER has been intimately involved with the animation community in Alberta for almost 30 years Carol has gathered in-depth knowledge and experience that encompasses production in traditional and digital 2D and 3D modes, non-profit programming and administration, and post-secondary teaching and curricular development. In 1994, with her life partner Kevin D.A. Kurytnik, they formed Fifteen Pound Pink Productions, named thus because that’s how much their cat weighed.
HEATHER KAI SMITH is a Canadian visual artist and educator currently living between Nanaimo, Vancouver Island, BC and Chicago, IL. Smith has attended residencies across the United States and in Germany, while exhibiting her work within a variety of institutional and non-conventional spaces. Smith has participated in and facilitated workshops and collaborative projects across Canada and the United States, most recently teaching undergraduate classes in drawing and visual arts theory at Emily Carr University of Art and Design (Vancouver, Canada). Recent exhibitions include: The Walter Phillips Gallery (Banff), studio e gallery (Seattle), The Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery (Vancouver). She is also the founder of Great Women Animators: a database which documents the history of women in animation from the 1800s-now.
WENDY TILBY & AMANDA FORBIS met at the Emily Carr College of Art and Design in Vancouver where they studied film, video and animation. Each went on to create their own works with the National Film Board of Canada (Strings and The Reluctant Deckhand) before co-directing When the Day Breaks which received over 30 international awards including the Palme D’Or at Cannes, a Genie Award, an Oscar® nomination and the Grand Prix at Annecy, Zagreb and Hiroshima International Animation Festivals. Wild Life, their latest short with the NFB, has won several prizes and in 2012 was nominated for an Academy Award. Tilby and Forbis have also collaborated on assorted commissioned projects and directed numerous TV commercials. Interview, their acclaimed spot for United Airlines, was nominated for an Emmy® in 2004. Forbis has led many animation workshops for kids and from 1987 – 1993 was an instructor at the Arts Umbrella Children’s Art Centre in Vancouver. Tilby has taught animation at Harvard and Concordia University and from 2007 – 2009 was external examiner for animation at the Royal College of Art in London.
JOANNE FISHER Joanne Fisher is a Calgary-based artist, emerging filmmaker, and a recipient of the Quickdraw Animation Society’s Chris J. Melnychuk Memorial Scholarship and Residency through which she made her first short animated film, “Stache and the Inner Walk.” She happily discovered making animation at the Quickdraw Animation Society four years ago after being a chiropractor, a homeschooler, an art student, and a backyard beekeeper. She has taken animation courses at the Quickdraw Animation Society and the Alberta University of the Arts. Her approach to animation is hands-on, messy, and experimental.
