Paloma Dawkins

Through the past couple of years, I've had the pleaure of meeting some inspiring creative people that I almost instantly click with. Paloma Dawkins is a bright, positive bouncing ball of a human being. She agreed to speak with me about her current projects and interests.

So, as an artist do you need a particular space to focus in on your ideas and start working?

Yup! I work at a space with a bunch of comic book artists most of the time but right now I am lucky enough to have a second work space just for animation at the NFB. It’s a psychological thing, I find I am more effective. I like to have a separate space for everything, like my bedroom has no computer because it’s just for sleep and whatever else (meditation, magic, etc).

How did you land a space at the NFB?

I applied for a yearly competition at the NFB made for Canadian auteur animators called Hothouse. I get to make a film using all their knowledge and equipment. Its actually a rare sort of program, it feels as if the entire film board is rooting me on. I don't know any where else I could get that sort of thing.

Is the film finished?

Not yet! December 2nd they say, I just started actually. Its gonna be good, though

What is the premise of your project?

It’s an animated exploration of movement, geometry and patterns found in nature. But I come from a cartoon background so it’ll be more of a fast paced colourful explosion of mother nature’s primordial soup! But it has a hidden structure and meaning which I hope people will be able to decipher.

Tell me more about your animations/ illustrations in the past few years.

Well I’ve been doing comics, illustrations and printmaking a lot in the past. I love doing zines and even bought a Risograph printer which I just haven’t given enough attention to because I got distracted by animation. I got into contact with Epic Meal Time and was going to animate their podcasts, but that didn’t pan out for whatever reason. Indigestion maybe. Instead, I got a small gig working with Deadmau5 and Imogen heap on a music video. It was really fun. I didn’t get a chance to study animation in school, so I pretty much force myself to rely on intuition to get around any issues. While I’m at the NFB I want to experiment a little, maybe do a little 3D. You know, take advantage.

Have you done any collaboration or work with/for Montreal based artists, or is your focus outside of the city? Why did you choose to live here?

I find this is a sweet city for cartooning, and the collision of languages is sort of fun to be in the middle of. I think that’s why I chose here, cheap rent to boot. Since being here I’d fallen in love with the music scene and I like to do posters and album covers for my musician friends. Like you, I think I did two Archery Guild posters. But my main plug would be for the internet. Collective consciousness and stuff.

Check out more of Paloma's work at : www.palomadawkins.ca