Animation show at Washington History Museum will bring out your inner cartoonist
William Troxel bears no resemblance to the Road Runner but the 9-year-old was scurrying around the Washington State History Museum like the famous Looney Tunes character last week.
You could almost hear a “meep meep.”
William and his family were taking in “The Animation Academy: From Pencils to Pixels”. The show offers not only the history of animation in the United States but plenty of hands-on exhibits where kids like William (and adults) can make their own animated movies, cartoons and drawings.
Museum curator Gwen Whiting said the show’s animation exhibits range from the 1920s to 3-D printing. She particularly likes the participatory exhibits in the traveling show.
“You don’t need to be an artist to create these,” Whiting said.
William was visiting the museum with his mother, Rebecca, and sister Emily, 11, from Westport. Along for the visit were grandparents Joe and Jeannette Seale from Anchorage.
“When I saw that there was an animation part of the museum, I just wanted to skip everything and go there,” William said. He and Emily are amateur animators, they explained. They have their own YouTube channels to post their work.
Emily demonstrated to an adult crowd how to make a circle into a bouncing ball at one station while William used Gumby, Pokey, Mr. Bill and other figures along with changeable backgrounds to make a short, stop-motion video.
Rebecca got into the act by making a cartoon of a tree growing from sprout to maturity.
There is physical history in the show. A massive camera used to shoot individual images for animation occupies a space. Another older device uses quickly flipping photos to create an animated effect.
“There’s a lot of history in here with the machines that adults would enjoy,” Rebecca said.
Nearby, a 3-D printer was making a small figure that could be used in stop-motion animation. It makes one a day, Whiting said.
The show has several exhibits dedicated to the long-running “The Simpsons” cartoon. The series has local connections. Creator Matt Groening attended The Evergreen State College in Olympia. The fictional Springfield nuclear power plant bears a strong resemblance to the unfinished Satsop nuclear plant outside Montesano.
A huge backdrop of the famous Simpson’s sofa and living room makes for an Instagram-worthy photo op.
“The Simpsons” are also the subject of what’s billed as the world’s largest traveling zoetrope. Early 1800s versions of the device were precursors to animation and used spinning images viewed through slits. This modern version uses strobe lights to turn figures spinning on wheels into moving images.
The show has favorite cartoons for every generation. It brought back memories of Popeye and Betty Boop for Jeannette Seale. But the show reinforced for her how much time her grandchildren and other kids look at screens.
“Everything is a game. Life is in the box. Life is in that thing,” she said, gesturing to a video screen.
Along with the Animation Academy, the history museum is staging its own locally produced show, “Fine Lines: Cartoons from the Collection”. The much smaller exhibit displays cartoons and illustrations, many published in newspapers and magazines dating back to the early 1900s. That exhibit opens Saturday.
If you go
What: “The Animation Academy: From Pencils to Pixels”
Where: Washington State History Museum, 1911 Pacific Ave., Tacoma.
When: Through Jan. 12.
Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday.
Admission: $11-14.
Information: washingtonhistory.org/
