Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Currently on exhibit in NYC is a show of architectural photos called, . “The City We Imagined/The City We Made: New New York 2001–2010.” It can be seen at the Architectural League in a storefront at 250 Hudson Street. The show is a trip through a decade’s worth of real-estate-development in New York. (read the New York Magazine review here.)

I mention this because Steve Fisher has quite a few photos included as part of this exhibit, and it’s quite a coup for him. He’s the friend whose photos I have been showcasing for quite some time now, and I’m pretty proud of what he’s accomplished.

Many of the photos he’s shared with me for this site have been architectural in nature, but most of them display a wry wit that I love. It goes without saying that they’re all well photographed.

Lately, he’s been sending a lot of flower photos and I love posting them. I haven’t been able to get out enough lately, so it makes me feel that I’m sharing the Spring on display in NY.

Here’s Steve’s current crop of photos sent to me.

1
(Click any image to enlarge.)

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

- The invitation read:

Poem In Your Pocket Day
A Citywide celebration of poetry and literacy where
New Yorkers are encouraged to carry a poem in their pocket
and share it with their friends, family, co-workers and classmates.

and

Grand Opening Preview of
Emily Dickenson’s Garden: The Poetry of Flowers
The Botanical Garden’s Spring Exhibition illuminating
Dickinson’s life, gardens and poems.

My friend, Steven Fisher was there to capture the event on film.

Within the exhibit, there is a model of Emily Dickinson’s home.

Of course, the primary exhibit in the Botanical Garden is the flowers.

There were plenty of treats to be had.

Finally, the celebrity guests arrived to make the presentation.
Sigourney Weaver.

Mayor Bloomberg

Many thanks, Steve for the great photos.

- This week I’m relingquishing the photo journal to my friend, Steve Fisher, who has sent me a batch of stunning photos. I can’t resist displaying them.

Steve knows I love Psychic fotos.

Other wacky signs will do as well.

The Empire State Building.

It’s all about the shadow the Empire State Building
throws on the new building center fhoto.

The flag flies in front of holy pictures.

Missing lawn Madonna

Another one found.

As is St. John.

You can never have too many back packs.

Catholic school children among the cherry blossoms.

Looking back on some of my past photo posts, I came across this odd one in November of 2006. I thought it was a good one (I love the photo featuring Judy Price), so I decided to post it again.

- Having recently pored over some of the artwork from Raggedy Ann & Andy (the NY contingent of the 1977 feature film), I wondered if I had any photos that I could post. There weren’t many that I could find quickly, but the few I did find are here.

The first two stills were taken for the John Canemaker book, “The Animated Raggedy Ann & Andy.” I think only one of the two appears in the book.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

Obviously, that’s Dick Williams with me looking over his shoulder. Oddly I remember being in this position often during the film. It’s probably the first image I have of the production when I look back on it. Dick and I had a lot of conversations (about the film) with him “going” and me listening.

When I did actually grab time to do some drawing, this is my desk. It sat in a corner of a room – across from Jim Logan and Judy Levitow. There were about ten other assistants in my room, and there were about seven rooms filled with assistants on the floor. I had to spend time going through all of them making sure everybody was happy.

This slightly out of focus picture shows Dick Williams (R) talking with Kevin Petrilak (L) and Tom Sito. That’s Lester Pegues Jr. in the background. Boy were we young then!
These guys were in the “taffy pit,” meaning they spent most of their time assisting Emery Hawkins who animated the bulk of the sequence.

Toward the end of the film, lots of other animators got thrown into the nightmarish sequence to try to help finish it. Once Emery’s art finished, I think the heart swoops out of that section of the film.

This photo isn’t from Raggedy Ann & Andy, but it just might have been. That’s the brilliant checker, Judy Price showing me the mechanics that don’t work on a scene on R.O.Blechman‘s Simple Gifts. This is the one-hour PBS special that I supervised after my Raggedy years. However, Judy was a principal on Raggedy Ann, and we spent a lot of time together.

Ida Greenberg was the Supervisor of all of Raggedy Ann’s Ink & Paint and Checking. She and I worked together on quite a few productions. I pulled her onto any films I worked on after Raggedy Ann. She was a dynamo and a good person to have backing you up.
I’m sorry I don’t have a photo of her from that period.

This is one of my favorite photos. Me (L), Jim Logan, Tom Sito (R). Jim was the first assistant hired after me – I’m not sure I was an assistant animator when they hired me, but I was being geared for something. The two of us built the studio up from scratch. We figured out how to get the desks, build the dividers, set up the rooms and order the equipment.

To top it all, Jim kept me laughing for the entire time I was there. I can’t think of too many others I clicked with on an animation production as I did with him. He made me look forward to going into work every day.

We frequently had lunch out, he and I, and I think this is at one of those lunches when Tom joined us. It looks to me like the chinese restaurant next door to the building on 45th Street. Often enough, Jim and I would just go there for a happy hour cocktail before leaving for the night.

I should have realized how important that period was for me and have taken more pictures. Oh well.

- One of the brilliant aspects about the design of New York City is the multifarious number of public parks, both large and small. In fact, there are so many you often walk past them without even noticing they’re there. The only time they become “there” is when they’re in your way. Then you’re forced to take notice.

One such park, for me is called “Stuyvesant Square.” This is a park cut in half by Second Avenue, located between 15th St. and 18th St. Each half is about half a city block wide.

Though I’d driven past it hundreds of times I never really noticed it. However, once I had to go to the Beth-Israel Hospital (which all of my primary care doctors seem to use) I had to take notice. You see, any of the entrances to the hospital are on 16th St. off First Ave.

To get to those entrances, you have to cross the Eastern half of the park. This means cabs going downtown have to go to blocks out of their way – to 14th St. – and circle around the park to First Ave. before they can drive back to 16th St. An extra dollar or two on the meter.

The Eastern half is the section that blocks all traffic trying to get
to the entrance and Emergency entrtrance of Beth Israel Hospital.
That entranece lies on 16th St. in between the two big buildings.

This week, I had a half hour to kill before an appointment,
so I visited both halves of this attractive and small park.

This is the main entrance to the West half of the park.
It would appear to be the principal part of the whole in that
it’s the more occupied and the more decorated.

Naturally, as with all NY parks, there’s a statue of its namesake, Peter Stuyvesant.

Looking down on this part of the park is St. George’s Episcopal Church.
A sturdy looking building if ever there was one. Very attractive.
Friends Seminary School is across 16th St. from the church.

The two lateral halves of the park shoot out several blocks.

It’s Spring, so all the trees are brilliantly in bloom.

The colorful trees really are an uplifting sight
for the short rest you can take in this park.

Copious flowers have been recently planted to celebrate the
wonderful (and probably short) Spring we’re experiencing in the City.

Across Second Ave. the Eastern half of Stuyvesant Square
is slightly more bare of blossoms – at least when I was there.

The flowers seem to bunched together.

There’s a very large dog walk which consumes at least a third of this
half of the park. It was being well used by plenty of dogs and owners.

However two hours later, the dog walk seemed to have disappeared.
It had been changed to an area where dogs were now leashed and
the general public seem to be walking about – without dogs.
Do they just close this at certain times for the dogs?

The center of this half of the park features a wading pool
which, for now, was closed to the public.

Off to my procedure. I walked through the park and into the 16th St.
entrance of the hospital. Relaxed thanks to the half hour sit among the flowers.

On Tuesday I’ll go in for an operation that should keep me there for a week. Hopefully,
I’ll have a room that looks down on the park.

These photos first appeared here in July 2007. All of the statues stand proudly in the same places. Spring’s in the air.

- Like most cities, New York is rich in statues. There are plenty of them in the parks, but there are others on the streets and outside buildings.

On my daily excursion from home to studio I see a lot of the same statues, and I thought today I’d feature some of these. For the most part they all fall into the same school, what I’ll call early twentieth century representational. They all honor some hero or other.

The entrance to Madison Square Park, at 23rd Street and Broadway, has a
large statue celebrating William Steward. He was Lincoln’s Secretary of
State, a former Senator and anti-slavery advocate. He was part of Booth’s
conspiracy to kill off Lincoln and other members of his cabinet and was___
stabbed in the throat that same night. ______________________________
He eventually recovered to serve under Andrew Johnson._______________
_______________
__
left: William Seward ___ right: David Glasgow Farragut

David G. Farragut was one of the most colorful naval commanders of the
Civil War. Though he was unsuccessful in early naval operations against
Vicksburg, Farragut’s success at New Orleans and Mobile Bay secured his
place in history as one of America’s most celebrated heroes.

__
Chester K. Arthur, the twenty-first President of the United States (1881-1885)
He stands at the Madison Avenue, 26th Street entrance to the park.

__
The east side of the park at 16th Street features this large and beautiful statue which is surrounded by tables where people can carry treats from the open market and rest. I haven’t yet found a plaque telling what the statue represents, but it looks to be
derivative of Daumier’s beautiful painting of a mother with her children. __________

__
Gandhi stands, almost hidden, at a side entrance to
the Park at 15th Street and University Place.
___

You can see that he stands almost hidden among the grass, flowers and weeds.

- The last couple of weeks has brought some pretty unfriendly weather to the New York area. The blizzard of snow we had two weekends ago had barely been washed from our streets and backyards, when we were hit with 5 inches of drenching rains and 50 mph winds this weekend. It’s still ongoing.

All this is nature’s way of saying Spring’s in the air. To celebrate (and to look at something less angry than our current street scenes) I thought it’d be appropriate to post these photos my friend, Steve Fisher, shot at the Botanical Gardens. Always a haven, the gardens are located in the Bronx just across the street from the main entrance of the Bronx Zoo. Once inside everything changes, the atmosphere quiets down and nature takes its course. Take a look at these photos, and many thanks to Steve for sharing them.

1
(Click any image you’d like to enlarge.)

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

The short break is over. Now back to the intemperate weather.

- There’s an advertising campaign for Diesel jeans that has filled the local train station (West 4th St, a major thoroughfare) and has gotten my goat. As a matter of fact, a number of other people have brought it up to me, so I know I’m not alone.

BE STUPID – that’s the campaign.
Immediately, you have to wonder what sort of jerk came up with it.

Next to the type a bunch of models are posed in moronic poses.
I guess it’s supposed to be creative.

A guy with a smoking helmet covering his head is very attractive.

Riding the rails.

This is the one that particularly annoys me.
How many creators out there like to think of themselves as stupid.
Perhaps the “creative” character that came up with this campaign.

Living in New York, you find at least some wit in the public.
That’s Sarah Palin stuck to poster.