I Want to Live in a Stop Motion World

The wisdom of slow, small things (+ my fav. stop motion accounts)

I’m a thoroughly modern woman, and by that I mean I spend too much of my one wild and precious life scrolling on social media. Is it a time suck that gives me gnawing headaches at the back of my neck? Yes. Is it a little wondrous treasure trove full of stunning art and footage of bubble-net feeding humpback whales and completely niche memes about moss, raccoons, and vultures? Also yes.

Instagram is my preferred poison. If you aren’t familiar, it has a “stories” feature that allows you to share images and videos that expire after 24 hours without clogging your more permanent feed. The speed makes it a fantastic place to share evolving information, the ephemerality makes it a safe spot to air what tickled your super weird sense of humor in a low stakes way. Or so I’ve been told…

Also, it can, at times, with *all* the careful vetting and necessary caveats attached, offer a meaningful news source for critical issues often underplayed or dismissed by national news outlets. The speed of the platform and its capacity for easy sharing and dissemination can make it a useful tool for grassroots movements (as seen in issues ranging from the Dakota Access Pipeline to the Arab Spring.)

Here’s the tricky part, though. After I share a weighty news story or an injustice deserving of greater attention – of which there are so, so many – it can feel jarring to follow that up with something silly or even something beautiful; the juxtaposition makes the contrast too stark.

But there’s one thing I almost can’t keep myself from sharing, no matter how bleak the day’s news.

India Rose Crawford’s adorable frog

As things seem to rattle more and more violently apart, I’ve found a small joy – quite literally - that brings me an incalculable degree of delight and coziness: stop motion Instagram accounts. I’ve always adored the feature-length creations of companies like Laika and Aardman, but recently I’ve been completely obsessed with short, simple animations – particularly when they’re made from fiber.

I was raised on the trippy wonders of plasticine claymation, but these days, I want to swaddle myself in the gauzy, wool roving world of Andrea Animates or take a snow day with Chloe Bensinger’s moth and woodland spirits. And don’t even get me started on India Rose Crawford’s little knit frog and his thimbleful of tea.

Whenever I scroll by one of these delightful scenes, I immediately tap the paper airplane share button to add them to my story. It’s an earnest attempt to wrap everyone who watches my scattershot stories in the cozy blanket of these creations.

But sometimes I’ll forget that earlier in the day I shared news of a new ecological devastation or a hate crime or a fresh erosion of women’s rights. Suddenly I find myself ashamed to have broadcasted these little escapist fantasies in felt. Certainly, I shouldn’t be letting my imagination rove in these handcrafted worlds when there’s so much work to be done in our real one, right?

The older I get, the less I know, but I’m keener to pick up on patterns. One of these is that if, in the face of terror and sorrow something offers an abiding joy, there’s probably some kind of wisdom tucked in there somewhere. So instead of feeling silly for my stop motion fascination, I decided to take a closer look at these miniature worlds to see what 1:12-scale insight they held.

Chloe Bensinger’s cozy little Moth friend

The scenes they portray are slow and simple, often depicting such day-to-day activities as ironing, doing the dishes, or picking wild strawberries. By painstakingly recreating these mundane acts – frame by frame, each detail made by hand – the everyday is re-enchanted, the quotidian becomes magical.

But these carefully crafted vignettes are more than just cozy, cottagecore escapism. They’re subtly and brilliantly subversive. Capitalism yokes success to endless, unrestrained growth; these stop motion scenes urges us to pause and see the grace and beauty inherent in small things close to home. Do you notice the steam that rises off your cup of coffee? When it’s rendered in fine wisps of wool impossibly curling through the air you do.  

Andrea Animates “Cooking With Wool”

Another pattern I’ve noticed: when everything goes sideways, basic acts of care connect us. People may stockpile canned goods and firearms against some future apocalypse, but when crises come, it’s making and sharing a meal or working together in the garden that keep us afloat. Hollywood and television present us with images of the dystopian ways we might unravel. Stop motion makes art of the modest gestures that knit us together.

Grind culture bellows: “Go faster!” Stop motion invites you to sit down and stay a while. As the pace of simply existing gallops ever faster, stop motion defiantly takes forever. Each element is manipulated, frame by frame, and photographed – sometimes as many as 24 images crammed into a second for smooth, lifelike motion. It can take up to three work weeks for an animator to create a single minute of animation.

Within these miniature worlds, every lamp, every fork, every plant is carefully created by hand. My friend Sam Cobb is one of the talented makers at ShadowMachine, the animation company behind Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio on Netflix; I asked her how her work transformed the way she looks at the world:

“The studio is broken in groups: the makers, the filmers, and the animators; each group had a philosophy based on their part in the program. Speaking for the makers, I can say that crafting a whole world from scratch makes you look at the ‘little things’ in your own environment with a lot more affection. It’s the tiny crumpled-up chip package, the minuscule post-it note, and the insanely small paper clip that makes us all thrilled the most.

Levels of wear and tear are added, so we look at things and say ‘where would this wear down or chip if a careless person used it? How about a fastidious person?’ We try to give things history.”

When you think about it, before mass industrialization, we lived in a stop motion world. Every object was made by hand, the care and stories of the craftsperson as subtly present as fingerprints on plasticine. Now, we either try to erase the labor of creation through overseas, often unethical, manufacturing or by outsourcing even our art to machines. There’s a certain comfort that AI can’t turn wool roving into a waffle maker, (though Laika has turned to 3D printing for streamlining the facial expressions in its films.)  

Now I could go fully off the rails and explore the existential implications of stop motion like Mr. Trout and Mr. Pickles do in one of my favorite end credits scenes from Boxtrolls, but I’ll let them do it:

The traits that characterize stop motion – deep dedication, focused attention, boundless patience, and tremendous care – are noticeably eroding just about everywhere else. Suffice it to say, sometimes the things that charm us offer the medicine we need most.

Like conversations like these?

If the idea of what animation and illustration says about our culture at large, here are some great Substacks to check out:

Animation Obsessive

- Exploring the best in animation from all around the world — part investigation, part treasure hunt.

Austin Kleon

- Weekly art, writing, and creative inspiration from the author of Steal Like an Artist and other bestsellers.

Monday Monday

- A weekly newsletter and monthly advice column on creativity and attention

Some of my feature-length stop-motion favorites

I apologize in advance to any die-hard animation fans, that this list is pretty basic. More than most art forms, stop motion can really run the gamut from just disgustingly cute to absolutely weird as hell. (Any other 80s children out there forever traumatized by this?) In no particular order….

• Pinocchio

• Mary and Max

• Fantastic Mr. Fox

• Robin Robin

• Nightmare Before Christmas

• Box Trolls

• The Little Prince

• Coraline

• Paranorman

• Wallace & Gromit (all of it)

What about you? What are some of your favorites? Share them in the comments!