{"id":142773,"date":"2025-11-21T08:00:04","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T13:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=142773"},"modified":"2025-11-20T08:21:38","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T13:21:38","slug":"happy-birthday-mary-ellen-bute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=142773","title":{"rendered":"“I would rather use light to draw with instead of making thousands of drawings.” — Mary Ellen Bute"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n“There were so many things I wanted to say, stream-of-consciousness things, designs and patterns while listening to music. I felt I might be able to say [them] if I had an unending canvas.” pioneering experimental animator Mary Ellen Bute<\/big><\/p>\n

If ever I was born to write a piece, it’s this one: For Film Comment<\/i>, I wrote about experimental animator Mary Ellen Bute<\/a>, and her 1966 adaptation of James Joyce’s “Finnegans Wake”<\/i>. She was a pioneer. Way out in front. <\/p>\n

As I wrote, a lot of her work is difficult to see – meaning, not accessible, holed up in archives – so you have to keep your eyes peeled for retrospectives of her work. But some of it is on YouTube, and you can get a sense of what she was about watching these shorts: <\/p>\n

Synchromy No. 2<\/em><\/strong> (1936)<\/p>\n

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