Visual artist Tala Rae Schlossberg, who describes herself as a "real scientist of imaginary space," has carved out a unique niche in the animation world through her experimental approach to mixed media moving images. Her creative work combines traditional analog techniques with contemporary storytelling, resulting in animations that transform everyday mundane elements into captivating visual narratives.
Schlossberg's path to animation was unconventional. She didn't study art formally but instead began her journey at Quest University in Canada, a small liberal arts school in the mountains of British Columbia that no longer exists. There, she studied mathematics, developing a love for systems, form, and logical structures that would later influence her artistic practice. "I love systems and form and playing with logic, so it makes sense to some degree with what I'm doing now," Schlossberg explains. "But I quickly found myself missing a creative outlet in my life."
The turning point came during the summer after her sophomore year when she took an introductory animation course while home in Eugene. "That unlocked my creative practice in a huge way," she recalls. Animation provided her with the autonomy to build her own narratives and express her innermost thoughts and ideas. She immediately fell in love with the frame-by-frame process and the opportunity to spend her days "thinking about time, rhythm and motion." For Schlossberg, animation "combines all of my favorite things – I get to make myself puzzles to solve and build new worlds."
After discovering her passion for moving images, Schlossberg took on a role creating videos at The New York Times before establishing her own creative studio called Two Toes. Co-founded with fellow designer and artist Kika Macfarane, the collaborative studio focused on visual storytelling for causes and brands including Nature Conservancy, Planned Parenthood, Patagonia, and Substack. Now working independently, Schlossberg has developed a portfolio bursting with inventive mixed-media animations, witty wordplay, and sensitive interpretations of beauty found in everyday objects and experiences.
"My creativity has always been this kind of energy seeping out of me in everything I do. The projects I make are the buckets I invent to catch it all," Schlossberg describes her creative process. Her current goal with animation work is "to always surprise myself with something new." To achieve this, she creates a unique visual language for each animated piece, often starting projects in completely different ways depending on the inspiration and requirements.
For a recent music video for Martin Buttrich and Charles Levine's track "Festival Queen," Schlossberg spent hours making marks with various types of paint, stamps, and paper. For her independent short film "Night In," she repurposed "a really bad roll of film I shot on a trip to the mountains in Spain," using the foggy appearance as a cornerstone for the film's visual aesthetic. Rather than starting with a blank page, the animator gives herself warm-up activities or sifts through collections of inspirational materials she has gathered over time.
"My favorite part of the process is getting to play with the pieces of my visual library after I create them. It's like getting to explore a strange new reality made out of only things I love," Schlossberg shares. This approach explains the incredibly fluid nature of her work, which she embraces as mixed media in the truest sense. "I like the act of turning old things into new things," she explains, "whether that's tearing paper, constructing a scene of cutouts or taking a line on a walk with crayons and other things that leave your hands very multicolored."
Schlossberg's commitment to analog techniques stems from both creative and practical considerations. Her toolbox of analog tricks never fails to create emotive and awe-inspiring moving images. The reason she doesn't go digital for these generative experiments is simple: "you become limited to activities that won't break your computer, which is a pretty tight constraint it turns out."
Rather than adhering to one set style, Schlossberg views artistic principles as "simply a way of seeing." She believes that "everyone's creative style is not in their output but rather in their methods – all our varied ways of doing things." Despite this philosophical approach to style, there are recurring elements that frequently appear in her animated work: the sky, the color green, the texture of paper, and imperfect, abstracted shapes. She adds to this list "ladders and portals and fields and puddles and birds and boats." With a focus always on the message, idea, or story, she believes creativity happens "with all you've got."
Schlossberg's recent works include various animated pieces such as "Paper Planes," "The Terrible Tragedy of Wasting Everything on Nothing At All," "Bloom," "Spin," "The Ball," and "Explations," each showcasing her distinctive approach to mixed media animation. These works demonstrate her ability to find profound meaning in simple concepts while maintaining the playful, experimental spirit that defines her artistic practice.
"I think that this is one of the greatest joys of being an artist – to continue to discover and expand the bounds of your world," Schlossberg reflects. "I am almost certain this will be a lifelong process of uncovering, and I'm almost certain I will like all of these things forever (unless I fall off a ladder or get lost in a portal or something)." Her work represents a refreshing approach to animation that celebrates the tactile, imperfect, and deeply human elements of creative expression in an increasingly digital world.
