Artist & Educator Charlotte Belland

Tim Fulton 0:15Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Confluence Cast presented by Columbus Underground. We are a weekly Columbus-centric podcast focusing on the civics, lifestyle, entertainment, and people of our city. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. This week, I sat down with educator, illustrator, and animator Charlotte Belland. We discussed her role at the Columbus College of Art and Design, the importance of putting yourself out there, how Columbus gives to its artists, and the importance of forming habits and showing up. You can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Also, the Confluence Cast is on Patreon. Find out how to support this podcast on our website, theconfluencecast.com, or at patreon.com/confluence. The Confluence Cast is sponsored this week by Art Makes Columbus, Columbus Makes Art, featuring stories about our city's incredible artists, stories full of inspiration, challenge, passion, and success. For videos, articles, an up-to-the-minute calendar of events, and an artist directory, visit columbusmakesart.com, the resource for all things arts and culture in the capital city. Enjoy the interview. Sitting down here with Charlotte Belland, educator at CCAD, illustrator, animator, and Columbus artist. Charlotte, how are you?

Charlotte Belland 1:43I'm great.

Tim Fulton 1:44Good.

Charlotte Belland 1:44How are you?

Tim Fulton 1:45I'm good.

Charlotte Belland 1:45Good.

Tim Fulton 1:45Thanks for sitting down today so much. Uh, we've done a little bit of discussion before we sat down here. Talk about sort of your, your work at CCAD and your work as an illustrator.

Charlotte Belland 1:57Sure. So my work at, uh, the Columbus College of Art and Design is as the chairperson and also as faculty.

Tim Fulton 2:04Mm-hmm.

Charlotte Belland 2:04So as a chairperson, um, my role is to remove obstacles for my team.

Tim Fulton 2:10Okay.

Charlotte Belland 2:10Is probably the best way to put it. So I've got a great team of, um, uh, staff and faculty, and of course then, you know, you've got the team of students there too.

Tim Fulton 2:17Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 2:17But my whole goal is to make sure I've got that 10,000-foot view of where, the overall big picture of where students need to be when, at the certain stages of their education. Uh, and then making sure that the faculty, students, and staff have enough resources, um, not too much 'cause we don't wanna raise tuition, you know?

Tim Fulton 2:35Mm-hmm.

Charlotte Belland 2:35That's the main thing. Um, but enough that they're able to gain, um, those skills, um, and the stuff necessary to actually get, you know, whichever direction they wanna go in terms of their career. Um, in terms of illustration, it's, uh, my own personal practice.

Tim Fulton 2:49Okay.

Charlotte Belland 2:50I, I, uh, really enjoy drawing animals, so anyone listening will be g- will be nodding their head yes. Uh, and so that passion just comes from a love of the diversity that's in the animal kingdom.

Tim Fulton 3:04Okay.

Charlotte Belland 3:05Uh, and then the ability to connect that with live experiences, so be able to connect with animals, but then also study them, um, hopefully with them right there with me, uh, and be able to capture those, those, that essence onto paper.

Tim Fulton 3:18And ta- going back to CCAD-

Charlotte Belland 3:21Yeah

Tim Fulton 3:21... Columbus College of Art and Design, talk about sort of how, how much is allocated of your time towards that administrative side and, and the teaching side?

Charlotte Belland 3:29Sure. So I, uh, as a full-time faculty member, I still get the opportunity to teach, which is amazing.

Tim Fulton 3:35Okay.

Charlotte Belland 3:35One of my favorite classes to teach is, uh, intro to animation because that's when the little artlings come to campus and they, they're there because they have a passion and a love for something that-

Tim Fulton 3:49Mm-hmm

Charlotte Belland 3:49... whatever medium it was, if it was commercial media animation or if it was independent or, or game or whatever it is, they're there because they're so passionate about it. They, and they have a, a skill that they have developed and they've worked on.

Tim Fulton 4:01Mm-hmm.

Charlotte Belland 4:02Um, but when they come in, that's my favorite class because, uh, they're just so excited and we get to try out all of the different types of animation, but then also learn about the history of it.

Tim Fulton 4:11And these aren't folks that are particularly focused in animation then, right?

Charlotte Belland 4:15They, they-

Tim Fulton 4:15Or they might be, but-

Charlotte Belland 4:16They think. Yeah. They-

Tim Fulton 4:18Okay

Charlotte Belland 4:18... they, they come in, um, a lot of times they come in as very educated consumers of animation and-

Tim Fulton 4:24Okay

Charlotte Belland 4:24... and kind of hobbyist. Uh, they've done lots of, um, of their own drawings, or they might have done a lot of copies or, um, you know, they're, they're just eager to, to go like-

Tim Fulton 4:32Yeah

Charlotte Belland 4:32... "Do I really wanna do this?"

Tim Fulton 4:33Okay.

Charlotte Belland 4:33And it's like, "Okay, into the deep end, no floaties." Poof. You know, there you go. Uh, so I do get to teach a couple classes. That's one of my favorites. And then I get to teach, um, usually it's about three classes a year, which can get a little, m- makes you, it forces you to choose.

Tim Fulton 4:48Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 4:48And so you're like, "Darn it, I wish I could teach, you know, all the different classes that I'm interested in," but you, you really can't. So it's about, um, about a half of your time is spent in the classroom, the other half is spent, uh, just traditional administration work, making sure, again, that there's resources for what's needed to operate the department.

Tim Fulton 5:05Mm-hmm.

Charlotte Belland 5:05Make sure we're meeting our accreditation standards. Um, make sure that we are, um, facilitating any kind of, um, you know, stuff happens like with grade disputes and, you know, it's super important that... The job has really taught me, okay, listen to everything first.

Tim Fulton 5:22Mm-hmm.

Charlotte Belland 5:23Write everything down, and then look at it as objectively as possible. 'Cause sometimes, you know, people can get pretty emotional about things on both sides.

Tim Fulton 5:31Well, especially grades, yeah.

Charlotte Belland 5:32Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 'Cause, you know, then there's, and it's my job to communicate well. Here's the rubric that the professor had provided you. Um, let's review it-

Tim Fulton 5:41Mm-hmm

Charlotte Belland 5:41... next to your piece and real- and to keep everything focused on just their work, not, you know, don't look at, you know, Billy's, don't look at, you know, don't look at-

Tim Fulton 5:48Right

Charlotte Belland 5:48... Susan's. Let's look at just your piece and really figure out. And then usually through that discussion it, I mean, sometimes obviously things escalate beyond, you know-

Tim Fulton 5:57Right

Charlotte Belland 5:58... and I have to make an arbitration, you know, like a, a choice. But I would say mostly it's, it's kinda half and half. Um-

Tim Fulton 6:03Well, that's why you get brought into it in the first place, right?

Charlotte Belland 6:05Yes.

Tim Fulton 6:05Like they're gonna dispute it with their professor first.

Charlotte Belland 6:08Yes.

Tim Fulton 6:08And then it sort of gets kicked up to you.

Charlotte Belland 6:10Yeah.

Tim Fulton 6:11Okay.

Charlotte Belland 6:11And, and that's to- and that's totally fine 'cause a student, and they know- You know, I, I don't want to make it sound like that happens a lot. Like, it's actually, it, it's pretty infrequent for the number of students that we have.

Tim Fulton 6:21Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 6:21We have over 250 students and, in the major right now, and it's growing. Um, a- and it just, it, it, it doesn't happen as often. But it, you know, or just little things like a student might come in... The thing that I enjoy the most is a student will come in and say, "I really enjoy these series of classes."

Tim Fulton 6:37Mm-hmm.

Charlotte Belland 6:37"And I'm, I'm really liking it. Um, I don't know if I really want to do that full time." And then being able to have a conversation about like, "Well, you know, animation, art, and illustration's in every field."

Tim Fulton 6:49Mm-hmm.

Charlotte Belland 6:49"So let's talk about strategies to connect some other aspect of yourself to the work that you're doing in the classroom." And it's so fulfilling when the student, you can see that little light bulb go off, and they're just like, you know, they're like, "I didn't think of that before in terms of..." And they had the answer.

Tim Fulton 7:05Right.

Charlotte Belland 7:05But they just need, you know, it wasn't, I didn't give them the answer. Just I needed to be there to kind of say, "You have this. Here's-"

Tim Fulton 7:11'Cause you're not terribly prescriptive about what all the classes they need to take in order to complete the major, right? They get to make some choice.

Charlotte Belland 7:18There's a freedom. Oh, yeah.

Tim Fulton 7:19Right, okay.

Charlotte Belland 7:19Yeah, there's a lot of freedom. 'Cause we don't... You know, we want them to deep dive into one of... So we have three mediums.

Tim Fulton 7:25Okay.

Charlotte Belland 7:25So we do, um, 2D animation, which is all digitally drawn.

Tim Fulton 7:29Okay.

Charlotte Belland 7:30Um, and it's a, um, you know, what people would consider like hand-drawn animation or like the-

Tim Fulton 7:35Okay

Charlotte Belland 7:35... the classic kind of animation. We have 3D animation, which is exactly what it sounds like. And then we have something called experimental, and experimental is anything other than our digitally drawn, um, animation.

Tim Fulton 7:46Okay.

Charlotte Belland 7:46So that means anything you can take a picture of, you can animate. So it's mostly under camera.

Tim Fulton 7:51Okay.

Charlotte Belland 7:52Um, and a lot of times that could be clay. That could be sand. It could be maquettes. It could be paper. Anything-

Tim Fulton 7:58Okay

Charlotte Belland 7:58... can be animated that way. And then we also consider, um, then game art and design as an umbrella over all three.

Tim Fulton 8:05Okay.

Charlotte Belland 8:05So we don't differentiate. So if a student comes in, they're like, "I really like making card games," great. Let's figure out how you can tell a card, you know, tell a story through a card game.

Tim Fulton 8:14And is, so is that, that's the part, they would go into an animation program if they were doing something like that?

Charlotte Belland 8:19Yeah.

Tim Fulton 8:20They were developing a card game.

Charlotte Belland 8:20Oh, absolutely.

Tim Fulton 8:21Okay.

Charlotte Belland 8:21Yeah, 'cause, um, we, we consider, we consider game both digital and analog.

Tim Fulton 8:25Okay.

Charlotte Belland 8:26So as long as, so the main goal for animation is tell us a story. So-

Tim Fulton 8:30I see, okay

Charlotte Belland 8:30... so if you can tell us a story through, uh, a dice game or through an augmented reality, you know, digital-

Tim Fulton 8:36Or through a cartoon

Charlotte Belland 8:37... or through a cartoon.

Tim Fulton 8:38Okay.

Charlotte Belland 8:38Great, you got it. Yeah, so the, so the students, they pick one of those areas and really deep dive into it. But then we kind of go, "Hey, we know you like 2D, but maybe you should learn a little, little 3D to-"

Tim Fulton 8:50Right

Charlotte Belland 8:50...'Cause it's not that they would necessarily use a ton of it, but they might use a little bit of it to help their 2D be even stronger. So, like, that's where we kind of nudge them. And then we have, um, three classes that we reserve, and we tell them, "Those three classes can't be animation."

Tim Fulton 9:04Okay.

Charlotte Belland 9:04You gotta pick something different in one... I mean, 'cause there's such a, there's a wide variety of opportunities at CCD, and we don't want them to silo-

Tim Fulton 9:11Mm-hmm

Charlotte Belland 9:12... into just animation. Because again, animation's in every field. If they have a love of typography, well then go take a class.

Tim Fulton 9:19Right.

Charlotte Belland 9:19You know, if they have a love of, um, you know, you got a, a kid who loves 3D animation, but they like the rendering and they like glass caustics, well then take, take a glassblowing class.

Tim Fulton 9:28Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 9:28Learn what it really does. Don't burn yourself. But you know, come you know, learn it and see it.

Tim Fulton 9:34Yeah. Well, and you're also learning, I imagine, you know, specifically with glass, like some amount of physics, and you're learning-

Charlotte Belland 9:40Absolutely

Tim Fulton 9:40... like stuff that can contribute to you as a whole artist.

Charlotte Belland 9:44Yep.

Tim Fulton 9:44So that's great. As an administrator, who are you accountable to? Is it just the board and the head administration at the school? And in your mind, is it the students and the parents and-

Charlotte Belland 9:56Sure

Tim Fulton 9:56... just talk about sort of that dynamic and your philosophy behind it.

Charlotte Belland 9:59Sure. So I'm accountable to a very wide, um, population. So the first and foremost are the students.

Tim Fulton 10:08Okay.

Charlotte Belland 10:08Because they're paying to be there.

Tim Fulton 10:10Mm-hmm.

Charlotte Belland 10:10They're investing in themselves, so therefore we have the responsibility to make sure that investment, you know, matches the expectations.

Tim Fulton 10:17Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 10:18Um, h- but then it's also then obviously the faculty and staff. They also need to be able to have, um, that's another constituent that needs to be able to have resources to be able to achieve those.

Tim Fulton 10:29Mm-hmm.

Charlotte Belland 10:30Um, obviously I'm, you know, I report directly to my dean.

Tim Fulton 10:33Mm-hmm.

Charlotte Belland 10:33Um, and the requirements of, um, the different, there's two schools within our, our, our, uh, college.

Tim Fulton 10:40Okay.

Charlotte Belland 10:40And so I'm on the side of design arts. So there's two deans. I'm, I s- uh, uh, interact with the dean of the design side-

Tim Fulton 10:47Mm-hmm

Charlotte Belland 10:47... of the house. And then obviously, um, as a faculty member and as an as- as administrator, then we then answer to the provost 'cause the provost, um, she has the purview over the entire, uh, she, uh, if we have a 10,000-foot view, then she's got 100,000-foot view of-

Tim Fulton 11:02Gotcha

Charlotte Belland 11:02... everything about the school. So and then, um, you know, obviously ultimately we answer to the president and what Dr. Corn's, you know, ultimate vision is for the school.

Tim Fulton 11:12Mm-hmm.

Charlotte Belland 11:13And then, you know, she answers then to the board. So it's a, it's a, a, a healthy, uh, ecosystem-

Tim Fulton 11:19Yeah

Charlotte Belland 11:19... of responsibility.

Tim Fulton 11:20No, absolutely. Talk about your background and where you came from and how you got here.

Charlotte Belland 11:27Sure. So I, I am a Columbus, uh, Columbus-born.

Tim Fulton 11:30Mm-hmm.

Charlotte Belland 11:30I was born at, um, Grant Hospital, so which is really fun 'cause that's about a couple blocks away from-

Tim Fulton 11:35Yeah

Charlotte Belland 11:35... where I work now.

Tim Fulton 11:36Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 11:36So I see the helicopter flying over to the hospital, um, frequently. Um, so I was, uh, born in Columbus. Um, we lived in Upper Arlington until about third grade. Um, while we were living in Upper Arlington, I actually attended, um, the Columbus School for Girls.

Tim Fulton 11:52Okay.

Charlotte Belland 11:52Go Unicorns.

Tim Fulton 11:53Okay.

Charlotte Belland 11:53So that was my first, um, my first school here in Columbus. And then we moved to Worthington, um, uh, around third grade and was there all the way up until graduation. So, um, Evening Street Elementary, um, was the next stop on that education tour. Um, we, uh, so growing up in Columbus, it was fascinating because w- You know, I didn't really know I was gonna be involved in animation. I knew I loved it.

Tim Fulton 12:18Okay.

Charlotte Belland 12:19Uh, 'cause the cool part was I, in Worthington, you could take one of the COTA buses right down to, um, the Drexel North, which is right next to the Laughing Ogre-

Tim Fulton 12:28Yeah

Charlotte Belland 12:28... which is a com- a nice, a really nice comic book, independently owned comic book store in Columbus, in Columbus, Ohio. So it was really fun to be able to just ride the bus down, watch like an independent collection of animation, which would just be, some of it's the weirdest stuff you could possibly imagine, and I would be like one of like three people in the audience watching this stuff. But it was so fascinating, and that was kind of the introduction to it. And I remember when I'd ride back up and I'd talk to my dad about, you know, I'm like... 'Cause I remember seeing a piece of CG animation, and I was like-

Tim Fulton 12:59Okay

Charlotte Belland 12:59... a- and I was totally blown away by it. It was called, um, uh, Eurhythmi, and it was, and I didn't know where it was made. And I talked to Dad, and he was like, "Oh yeah, that was made at Ohio State." And I was like, "What?" Like, and that was my first introduction to the fact that there was a thriving computer animation, um, uh, industry here in Columbus, Ohio, the Cranston / Csuri group.

Tim Fulton 13:19Okay.

Charlotte Belland 13:20And then also then the Computer Graphics Research Group over at Ohio State.

Tim Fulton 13:23Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 13:23So that's, so that kinda kinda put in my head when I was in, you know, elementary, middle school, but then I kinda put it on a shelf. Um, I did attend the Columbus College of Art and Design for, um, undergrad.

Tim Fulton 13:33Okay.

Charlotte Belland 13:33And I studied, um, uh, ag- well, it's now called Ag Graph. It was called Visual Communications when I was there, and, um, graduated top of my class.

Tim Fulton 13:42Congratulations.

Charlotte Belland 13:42Thank you. But the f- I was not, I had fallen out of love of, of it. So I had, I had had lots of fabulous opportunities to have internships with, um, small firms, private firms, large, you know, agencies.

Tim Fulton 13:55Mm-hmm.

Charlotte Belland 13:56And I realized I didn't like it.

Tim Fulton 13:58Okay.

Charlotte Belland 13:58And I was like-

Tim Fulton 13:59You got burned out.

Charlotte Belland 14:00I w- I, well, I didn't-

Tim Fulton 14:00Or you, it just w- you discovered-

Charlotte Belland 14:02I, it just-

Tim Fulton 14:02... that it wasn't for you.

Charlotte Belland 14:03I w- I discovered it wasn't for me 'cause I didn't feel like, it didn't... Not that a job has, a job definitely doesn't define who we are as people. However-

Tim Fulton 14:09Right

Charlotte Belland 14:10... I felt, I never felt like I was a- applying myself the way I should be, or, or I wasn't contributing to the team the way I saw my peers contributing. And they were, you know, super excited about-

Tim Fulton 14:21Mm-hmm

Charlotte Belland 14:22... uh, you know, different kinds of campaigns, and I just, I was like, "Okay, this doesn't feel like a good fit," you know? And I'd, I'd end up drawing animals all over my notes, you know?

Tim Fulton 14:31Okay.

Charlotte Belland 14:31It was like, it was kinda painfully obvious. So by the end of my senior year, um, I was able to take... So I, I didn't know what to do, and someone said, "Maybe you should go to grad school. Maybe you should really..." 'Cause at that point, computers, computers hadn't really been, there were a couple really nice computers ups, you know, in one of the labs in the upsta- one of the upstairs of, um, one of the buildings. And-

Tim Fulton 14:51Okay

Charlotte Belland 14:51... the classes were so booked you couldn't get into it as a CCAD student.

Tim Fulton 14:54Okay.

Charlotte Belland 14:54So it's like, and then there was another lab of like, um, another lab with computers that you could barely get into. Anyway, so then they were like, "Well, you know, go to Ohio State. They've got the, um, the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design." I was like-

Tim Fulton 15:06And the resources to-

Charlotte Belland 15:08Abso-

Tim Fulton 15:08... to facilitate that

Charlotte Belland 15:09... absolutely.

Tim Fulton 15:10Okay.

Charlotte Belland 15:10'Cause I, I'd seen like, you know, you saw Jurassic Park and I'm like, "Those CG dinosaurs, that's amazing."

Tim Fulton 15:15Right.

Charlotte Belland 15:15And I'm like, "How do you do that?" It was, you know, a- and I'm like, "Okay, shoot, now I've gotta, like, figure this out." But, um, much to my surprise, I was, um, I applied to Ohio State. I applied to a variety of schools, but I applied to Ohio State. I was hoping and hoping and hoping that I was gonna get it.

Tim Fulton 15:30You wanted to stay here.

Charlotte Belland 15:32Yeah.

Tim Fulton 15:32Okay.

Charlotte Belland 15:32I wanted to stay here because the, 'cause again, like, um, Columbus has, you know, it has a v- It's not that there's, like, a, a strictly animation community here. It's that, that animation's everywhere. Like, it's, it's at so many different, um, facilities and companies. I was like, "This is such an amazing place."

Tim Fulton 15:50Mm.

Charlotte Belland 15:50You know, I wanna, I wanna study it here and see if I really and truly like it. Um, I was at a Society of Illustrator- Illustrators event in New York City, and I got a call from... I mean, this is before cell phones, of course.

Tim Fulton 16:01Okay.

Charlotte Belland 16:01So there's a call at the hotel. I know, God. I got a call-

Tim Fulton 16:06Well, it's indicative when you're talking about, like, computer animation and, like, what the-

Charlotte Belland 16:09Yeah

Tim Fulton 16:09... resources were at the time. So, no, it's-

Charlotte Belland 16:11Yeah, no cell phones. Oof. Well, I mean, there were cell phones, but I mean, you had to be, like, incredibly wealthy.

Tim Fulton 16:15You were carrying a suitcase if you were carrying a cell phone.

Charlotte Belland 16:17Absolutely.

Tim Fulton 16:18Right.

Charlotte Belland 16:18Yeah. So I got, there was a call at the front desk. They said, "Your parents called." And at first I'm like, "Oh my God, you know, something's wrong."

Tim Fulton 16:23Some- right.

Charlotte Belland 16:23So I ran down, and my dad was like, "Uh, we got a letter from OSU." That was the last letter to arrive from all the different schools.

Tim Fulton 16:29Okay.

Charlotte Belland 16:29And I was like, "Do you want us to open it?" And, um, you know, my friend Jen Rarey was like, she's like, "Yeah, yeah," like, "Open it." I'm like, "I don't know if I can handle the str-," you know. And of course, I opened it. I had been accepted, you know?

Tim Fulton 16:40Right.

Charlotte Belland 16:40And it was great, you know. It, it just was a really cool moment to be with, um, you know, uh, student colleagues of mine in New York City-

Tim Fulton 16:48Yeah

Charlotte Belland 16:48... with illustrator, uh, with illustration teachers at a highly, you know, was-

Tim Fulton 16:52Highly regarded conference-

Charlotte Belland 16:54Yeah

Tim Fulton 16:54... and, like, it sort of-

Charlotte Belland 16:54And it was like, "Here it was."

Tim Fulton 16:55It felt like things were culminating-

Charlotte Belland 16:56Yeah

Tim Fulton 16:56... for you in that moment.

Charlotte Belland 16:58So that's how-

Tim Fulton 16:58Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 16:58So I got to stay. I was really lucky and got to stay in Columbus.

Tim Fulton 17:00And then, so that was for a master's program.

Charlotte Belland 17:02Master's program, yep.

Tim Fulton 17:03Okay, great.

Charlotte Belland 17:03Master of Fine Arts in Computer Animation.

Tim Fulton 17:05Got it. And then you forayed that into, directly into CCAD? Or...

Charlotte Belland 17:10Um, so I started, so while I was at, um, uh, at A- at Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design, we had originally started working, they origin- the original program that they had was, uh, for someone who had not been indoctrinated into Unix and-

Tim Fulton 17:25Okay

Charlotte Belland 17:26... um, not working with a mouse, you know, and-

Tim Fulton 17:28Right

Charlotte Belland 17:28... having to type in commands, um, it was a little, it was daunting. And, um, y- you know, a w- a couple of my classmates said, "Hey, there's this really cool program called, um, Wavef-," well, it was called, now it's called, it was called Maya. It was the original, like, it was, like, Maya 1.0.

Tim Fulton 17:45Okay.

Charlotte Belland 17:45And we begged and pleaded, and our, um, uh, the director said, "Okay, we'll put it on one machine." So the three of us kept, like, rotating around.

Tim Fulton 17:51And I'm sorry, that's-

Charlotte Belland 17:52Oh, it's-

Tim Fulton 17:52I'm not familiar. That's a program or-

Charlotte Belland 17:53That's a pr- I'm sorry. That's a 3D animation program.

Tim Fulton 17:55Got it.

Charlotte Belland 17:56So it's, so right now it's known as Autodesk Maya.

Tim Fulton 17:58Oh, okay.

Charlotte Belland 17:59Um, and it's, um-

Tim Fulton 18:00'Cause it was acquired by Autodesk.

Charlotte Belland 18:01'Cause it, yeah.

Tim Fulton 18:02Okay.

Charlotte Belland 18:02'Cause it was originally Wa- it was originally Wavefront. It was called, like, and the program that we had wasn't even, like, Maya 1.0. It was, like, Wavefront, like, Animate or-

Tim Fulton 18:09Okay

Charlotte Belland 18:09... something like that. But then it ch- and then it switched into Maya 1.0.

Tim Fulton 18:12Okay.

Charlotte Belland 18:13And so the three of us kinda rotated around on this computer, and it, like, the program that we were using before made no sense, but this one made sense.

Tim Fulton 18:20Okay.

Charlotte Belland 18:20Like, I'm like, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this is made by animators for-"

Tim Fulton 18:24It's intuitive.

Charlotte Belland 18:25Yeah.

Tim Fulton 18:25It makes sense how to develop things, develop-

Charlotte Belland 18:27Yeah

Tim Fulton 18:27... stories, right?

Charlotte Belland 18:28And so it really took off, and I was like... And I f- kind of felt like I was swimming in the right, you know, you know, up the right river-

Tim Fulton 18:34Mm-hmm

Charlotte Belland 18:34... with the right current. You know, it felt, it felt really good, and I was able to, after I graduated, um, I worked as w- basically it's called technical direction. So basically people would have a Maya file that would be... They would be working on it commercially, and-

Tim Fulton 18:48Yeah

Charlotte Belland 18:48... it would be so messed up, they're like, "We can't fix this." And I had a really good knack of looking at a file and going like, "Okay, here's where we need to rebuild it or whatnot," and then give them an, an estimate about what, you know, it was gonna cost.

Tim Fulton 18:58Right.

Charlotte Belland 18:59Um, and they would decide either to pay it or just have me rebuild it or whatever it was.

Tim Fulton 19:02It's almost programming at that point, right?

Charlotte Belland 19:04Yeah.

Tim Fulton 19:04In terms of, like, you're trying to get from point A to point B-

Charlotte Belland 19:07Yeah

Tim Fulton 19:07... and, like, here's where you me- either you messed up or there was a, you were shortsighted in terms of how you needed to implement something.

Charlotte Belland 19:15Yep.

Tim Fulton 19:16And you then came in as a technical director and was like, "Okay, here's how we're gonna fix-"

Charlotte Belland 19:20We're gonna fix it

Tim Fulton 19:20... put, we're gonna put this back together.

Charlotte Belland 19:22Yeah. And it was, it, you know, and it was, it was a f- it was challenging, 'cause, like, you'd get a call, like, on a Friday afternoon.

Tim Fulton 19:28"Hey, we've got this project due on Tuesday."

Charlotte Belland 19:30And you... Yeah, and they're like, and you're like, "Oh, shoot." You know, but, you know, everyone was very kind and they were... And it was, it was kind of, it was very q- it was a neat feeling to be able to help, you know, where they're like, "We have no idea how this messed up. If we do this particular thing, this is how it breaks. You know, help." You know?

Tim Fulton 19:46And so this was a, in a commercial environment, right?

Charlotte Belland 19:48Yeah. Well, you know, I was working as a co- like a, basically this independent, um, freelancer.

Tim Fulton 19:52Okay.

Charlotte Belland 19:52So people would c- I just, I got that, um, that reputation, and people would call and they would say-

Tim Fulton 19:57Mm-hmm

Charlotte Belland 19:57... you know, call. Like, wouldn't even, well, we kind of emailed, but-

Tim Fulton 20:00Right

Charlotte Belland 20:00... they would, they would, um, mostly call. Um, you know, and then they would, you know, file deliver. Like, we would literally, like, I'd, like a FedEx person would show up with, like, a Bernoulli drive. Like, I don't even know if people know that. It's like a w- it, it's literally-

Tim Fulton 20:13A drive

Charlotte Belland 20:13... it's a drive. Like, they would show up with a d- a big old, you know, drive. And-

Tim Fulton 20:17This was pre-USB as well.

Charlotte Belland 20:18Yeah.

Tim Fulton 20:19Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 20:19Yeah, everything was a parallel port. Yeah.

Tim Fulton 20:22Yes. Yes.

Charlotte Belland 20:23But it was, it was, it was really fun, but it just, um... That, and then I got to do, um, some, uh, some teaching at Ohio State and then-

Tim Fulton 20:32Okay

Charlotte Belland 20:32... some teaching at CCAD, and I was like, "Oh, this is really amazing." I, I... It was like that same thing of fixing a file except it was you were helping somebody else. You were helping a human. Like, a-

Tim Fulton 20:44You were teaching some- I mean, not to overuse an analogy, but you were teaching somebody how to fish rather than, like, giving them a meal.

Charlotte Belland 20:51The fish.

Tim Fulton 20:51Right.

Charlotte Belland 20:51Yeah, absolutely. It was great.

Tim Fulton 20:53Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 20:53So I, I got kind of addicted to it, and, and, uh, and, uh, positioned. Uh, there were, there was a, there was a moment where there was an opportunity at, um, at CCAD and then a couple other colleges, and I applied for all of them, not thinking in any way, shape, or form I'd get the one at CCAD, and then, um, that happened.

Tim Fulton 21:09Okay.

Charlotte Belland 21:10And that was in 2002, and I've been there ever since.

Tim Fulton 21:12That's awesome. And then from there you became chair after a while at the department.

Charlotte Belland 21:17Sure.

Tim Fulton 21:18Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 21:18The, so the major, we, CCAD's history is that the, um, they had been teaching animation classes. Um, uh, so, so Ron Sack started the animation classes back when, um, uh, Conzani was president-

Tim Fulton 21:30Okay

Charlotte Belland 21:30... um, at the school. And, um, so that's back in the, the, um, the late '80s, early '90s.

Tim Fulton 21:35Mm-hmm.

Charlotte Belland 21:36So animation classes had been taught, but they hadn't really, there wasn't really, like, a major for it. And then, um, there was a major called media studies, and media studies was photography, animation, and film.

Tim Fulton 21:45Okay.

Charlotte Belland 21:46And then in 2008, those three, um, became their own independent majors.

Tim Fulton 21:51Got it.

Charlotte Belland 21:51So they became animation, um, film and video, and photography. And then in 2010, they took applications for chair, for the chairperson.

Tim Fulton 22:00Mm-hmm.

Charlotte Belland 22:01Um, and again, it's one of those things where like-

Tim Fulton 22:03And you were like, "I'm gonna throw my hat-"

Charlotte Belland 22:04"I'll throw my hat in the ring."

Tim Fulton 22:05Right.

Charlotte Belland 22:05Yeah. But, you know, and of course classic me, like, instead of... You know, they, they wanted you to write up, like, a, um, a proposal about what you thought y- you would do in terms of, um-

Tim Fulton 22:15'Cause this is a brand-new role.

Charlotte Belland 22:16Yeah.

Tim Fulton 22:16Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 22:17And I wrote mine like a, a birding field guide. So everything was, like, related to birds. It was like a f- it's called The Field Guide to Animation. But every-

Tim Fulton 22:26You made a little book.

Charlotte Belland 22:27I made a little book.

Tim Fulton 22:28With drawings.

Charlotte Belland 22:28And with, yeah. And it-

Tim Fulton 22:29No, that's great. I mean, that's appropriate, right? Like, you-

Charlotte Belland 22:33Well, uh, in theory, but I was... I, I mean, it, it, I, I look back at it and I'm like, "Oh, what was I... What was..." I should've been a little more academic is what I'm getting at.

Tim Fulton 22:40It was a little too daring is what you're saying.

Charlotte Belland 22:42Maybe.

Tim Fulton 22:43Or a little outside the box.

Charlotte Belland 22:43Outside the box.

Tim Fulton 22:44Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 22:44And it, but it was, when I look back at it, the part I'm really proud of is, like, a lot of the stuff that I w- wrote in it has taken place.

Tim Fulton 22:51Okay.

Charlotte Belland 22:51I mean, it just, it, it blows my mind, especially about the idea of creating a habitat. Like, that actually happened. Like, we now have an animation habitat. It's an actual ecosystem that we created there. So it's, you know, it, it might have been written kind of funny in terms of I was talking about, like, migration patterns of alumni and, you know, how do you tag and release a bird so you can find it later.

Tim Fulton 23:12Oh, that's interesting.

Charlotte Belland 23:12But that was the-

Tim Fulton 23:13Yeah

Charlotte Belland 23:13... alumni, you know, parody of it. So it just, it was, um... I look back at it and I'm like, "I wonder what in the world..." You know, they were like, "I don't know. Who knows?" You know, "No need for me to know."

Tim Fulton 23:22Obviously you impressed them to the extent that you got the job.

Charlotte Belland 23:25It was-

Tim Fulton 23:26So-

Charlotte Belland 23:26... very exciting

Tim Fulton 23:27... I'm curious at this point, and I don't wanna delve too deep into it, but, you know, now that you've been doing it for almost 10 years, like, maybe it's time to write another- Like, a, you know, set a guiding path in that-

Charlotte Belland 23:39Oh, yeah

Tim Fulton 23:39... you've succeeded all the things you've done.

Charlotte Belland 23:41Now what?

Tim Fulton 23:42This is not-

Charlotte Belland 23:42Yeah

Tim Fulton 23:42... your annual review at work, by the way- ... where, where I'm like, "Okay, let's set some goals," and, you know. But yeah, that's interesting that, like, you've sort of accomplished what you've set out to do and, you know-

Charlotte Belland 23:54That's a great-

Tim Fulton 23:55... what's next?

Charlotte Belland 23:55That's great feedback. That's, that is a r- that's really good feedback, and I'd have to think about... 'Cause obviously there's more than just my voice.

Tim Fulton 24:04Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 24:04Like, when I applied for the job, it was just my singular voice. Um, now with the team, um, obviously, you know, I'd wanna have the voice of the faculty, the staff, and then especially the students. The students have been instrumental-

Tim Fulton 24:16Yeah

Charlotte Belland 24:16... in how the program has developed, because they, you know, it, it takes a lot of trust, um, because, you know, you don't know what you don't know. Students, um, 'cause I was that same way, too. I thought, I, you know, of course, when you're, you know, 18, 19, 20, you think like, "Oh, I got everything figured out." And- Oh my gosh, we don't. You know, so i- but-

Tim Fulton 24:36But based on that feedback that you were able to sort of evolve-

Charlotte Belland 24:39Yeah

Tim Fulton 24:39... the program.

Charlotte Belland 24:40So you can, yeah, so the nice part is like the students would come with, and you entertain any i- you could entertain any idea. But the nice part was like they really do, you know, they're genu- they genuinely care about, um, making the program stronger for the students that follow them.

Tim Fulton 24:54Mm-hmm.

Charlotte Belland 24:55Which is amazing. So, you know, it's a, it's a lot of active listening and, you know, you know, filtering-

Tim Fulton 25:02Mm-hmm

Charlotte Belland 25:02... between what we can do and what we can't do. Um, and sometimes it's not a question of money, it's just a question of effort.

Tim Fulton 25:08Mm.

Charlotte Belland 25:08So if I say, "That's a really great idea, can you help me with it?" Um, if they're willing to do it, then let's do it.

Tim Fulton 25:13Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 25:14And they might do it completely different than me, but as an administrator, I just have to look and say, "Okay, did it get accomplished?"

Tim Fulton 25:19Right.

Charlotte Belland 25:20And it might look completely different, but if it's there, great.

Tim Fulton 25:23Yeah. Let's switch gears a little bit-

Charlotte Belland 25:26Sure

Tim Fulton 25:26... and talk about your personal artistic practice. You draw a lot of animals. I just wanna- Talk, talk to me about what, uh, what your passion is there, how you got into it, and what your philosophy is behind your work.

Charlotte Belland 25:40Sure. So my... Columbus offers an amazing, you know, it, there's an amazing collection of people here who really do care about animals.

Tim Fulton 25:51Mm-hmm.

Charlotte Belland 25:51And all kinds of different animal causes, whether that's for, you know, the husbandry of, you know, domestic animals all the way up to international efforts to save, you know, the cheetah. Uh, and y- so I had, obviously as a Columbus, you know, native-

Tim Fulton 26:07Mm-hmm

Charlotte Belland 26:08... you know, I thoroughly would, you know, um, thoroughly enjoy the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. You know, I remember going up there when, you know, the original, uh, giraffe and zebra exhibit was when you f- you know, you literally first walked in.

Tim Fulton 26:21Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Charlotte Belland 26:21You know, it was just, it was right there. And, and, um, uh, to watch the zoo transform into the just amazing place and the amazing people that are there, I think that's been the biggest inspiration point for me in terms of animals. Because when you, I mean, to be able to s- to be able to be that close to a lot of those animals and be able to see them, it's inspiring. I mean, for me, it's, I mean, I remember when the Heart of Africa exhibit opened.

Tim Fulton 26:47Mm-hmm.

Charlotte Belland 26:47And I walked in, and there were zebras. And I know that you can go to look-

Tim Fulton 26:50And they're right there.

Charlotte Belland 26:51They're right there.

Tim Fulton 26:52Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 26:52It's like you look at them, you're just like, "That's amazing." And like right when, it's like, but this is like classic Columbus. It's like right when that opened, there are these zebras and then, you know, then I get contacted by Stephanie Rond, and she's like-

Tim Fulton 27:06Mm

Charlotte Belland 27:06... "I want you to do, you know, I wanna invite you to do an exhibit in the S Dot gallery." And I'm like, "Okay, zebras, let's, you know, let's do zebras." Like, it just, Columbus, you know, like the C, okay, might be, you know, for, you know, like Cbus, but it's also like connect. Everything always seems to connect-

Tim Fulton 27:21Mm

Charlotte Belland 27:21... and seems to, like if you are active and, you know, attending and, or, or in a-

Tim Fulton 27:26And present, right

Charlotte Belland 27:27... and present, like my goodness, this city keeps giving. It's like, it's just, um, it's, it's, it's very inspiring. Like, it just, the an- like the fact that there are champions of animals here in town that also are, are, are eager to interact with artists-

Tim Fulton 27:47Yeah

Charlotte Belland 27:47... and be able to work with artists in such a way that we can... You know, one of my big passion projects is to, is my donation of art in terms of, um, you know, animal conservation because-

Tim Fulton 27:58Okay

Charlotte Belland 27:59... uh, it can go for, you know, y- those can go for, um, uh, fundraisers and for auctions, and it, stuff can be, you know, I can, I can raise more money by, you know, doing the thing that I love, which is to draw an animal.

Tim Fulton 28:11Right.

Charlotte Belland 28:12Uh, get it framed up, donate it to whatever, you know, that, that particular group is, and then it raises money, which then helps the animals, helps the people helping the animals. Like, that's-

Tim Fulton 28:21Which I imagine it might be a little bit more than you would feel comfortable donating yourself, right?

Charlotte Belland 28:25Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, I, I mean, I'm, I'm very privileged in my, you know, my career and, and you know, what it affords me.

Tim Fulton 28:33Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 28:33Um, but the catch is, like, I can raise more money by investing some time and-

Tim Fulton 28:38Yeah

Charlotte Belland 28:38... and effort. It's just, it's, it's amazing.

Tim Fulton 28:41Well, no, I think that that tends to be true in a lot of things where, like, donating something other than money is actually more beneficial for, whether that's even raising money or whether that's just giving time to volunteer in an event.

Charlotte Belland 28:53Sure, yeah.

Tim Fulton 28:53Like, and also, I think that that hearkens back to what you were saying about being present and being aware of the things so that you know what's happening and how to get involved. Um, we, I will link to the S Dot gallery in the show notes. There's actually a fantastic little video of you putting together the show for the S Dot gallery, which I'll link in the show notes as well. So do, uh, if you're listening, please do check that out. Talk about how, how you work. Um, and I know you have some recommendations for, like, how people can get better within their craft. Can you sort of talk, talk through that?

Charlotte Belland 29:30Yes. So my, so originally, in terms of my craft, like I wanted, just like all artists, you wanna get better, you wanna grow, you wanna, you know, improve. Someone told me a long time ago, they were like, "Don't erase."

Tim Fulton 29:46Okay.

Charlotte Belland 29:47And I was like, "Uh, what?" Like, I was like, "There's an eraser on the end of my pencil." And they're like, "Nope." You know, and they would, um, physically cut it off the end of the pencil, and they're like, "You're not allowed to erase." And I'm like, "Why?" And they're like, "'Cause that takes up time." And at first I was just angry. I was like, you know, you rebel against that and you're like, "I'm gonna-

Tim Fulton 30:04Right

Charlotte Belland 30:04... I'm gonna erase. You can't tell me what to do." Uh, but the, the brilliance behind that is that, that this forced me, like 15 years ago when I was first starting that path, by not erasing, if you can commit, if you can put that one, that one line down and just be done and move on-

Tim Fulton 30:21Okay

Charlotte Belland 30:22... you can start to get to just the most basic essence of what you're drawing. And being able to have a singular line that represents, you know, a very complex- ... continuity across, let's say, like, the back of the animal. Okay. Well, the back of the animal has, you know, numerous muscles, numerous protrusions from the skeleton, you know? It, but if you can use the width and the s- the energy of that stroke to, to give that illusion of overlap and connectivity-

Tim Fulton 30:51Mm-hmm

Charlotte Belland 30:52... it makes a very powerful image. So my artwork is all about boiling that, you know, that essence down into as few lines as possible.

Tim Fulton 31:01Yeah. I was gonna say that, like-

Charlotte Belland 31:02Yeah

Tim Fulton 31:02... that you don't, you don't erase things. But also, like, there's not, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of extra anything-

Charlotte Belland 31:09Nope

Tim Fulton 31:10... in order to convey an image or convey an emot- an emotion from an animal or movement of an animal. Um, and that's what I like about the work. So yeah.

Charlotte Belland 31:19Thank you. It's, i- it's taken, that whole process has taken about, like, about 15 years. Like, about 10 years, like, truly focused on it.

Tim Fulton 31:27Okay.

Charlotte Belland 31:28Um, it's, uh, the ... Like, ink. Ink became really important because so- something, of course, that, you know, don't erase anything. I'm like, "Okay, fine. I'm gonna use ink, you know. I'll show you, boo," you know, whatever. Like, this-

Tim Fulton 31:41Well, it forces your hand a little bit, right?

Charlotte Belland 31:43Yeah. And it's like, it's, it's always, like, it's always ...

Tim Fulton 31:46It's, uh-

Charlotte Belland 31:46I, I'm showing my hand and I have-

Tim Fulton 31:47Right

Charlotte Belland 31:47... ink all over it. So 'cause that's, 'cause I've got my, you know, my ink pens with me.

Tim Fulton 31:52Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 31:52And that's just what, um, I draw with. It, but the, the nice thing about a brush pen, too, it also opens up this idea of that line width variation. So as you push and you pull or you allow it to dry out-

Tim Fulton 32:04Mm-hmm

Charlotte Belland 32:04... it gives you a different edge and a different feeling. Um, and it, it, it just, I, I mean, the, there's a, there's m- there's high merit, obviously, to, to like, highly rendered things. But the catch-

Tim Fulton 32:15Yeah

Charlotte Belland 32:15... is because I, because I teach in a field that is, uh, immediate-

Tim Fulton 32:20Mm-hmm

Charlotte Belland 32:21... and you have to, you have to choose how much you add to something. 'Cause every time you add something to an animated whatever it is, it costs money. Like, it costs money and time.

Tim Fulton 32:30Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 32:30So if you can reduce it to its most, most, just to that, just to the, the, the adjective and the verb-

Tim Fulton 32:36Okay

Charlotte Belland 32:36... the noun will read.

Tim Fulton 32:38Yeah. 'Cause what you're, you're trying to convey a certain thing, right?

Charlotte Belland 32:42Yeah.

Tim Fulton 32:42Okay.

Charlotte Belland 32:43And then t- you know, being able to get... So the, the number one thing when we're working with, like, students and trying to help, you know, 'cause we, we teach some classes where they have to draw very fast, you know. And sometimes from life and sometimes from memory. And the goal is that they're not drawing every little detail. They're drawing, you know, that essence of what they're looking at. And it takes, so it takes a l- you know. But then also too, they also have their own voice. Like, that's the other thing too. Like, I, it, it's weird as an ar- it's, it's interesting as an artist when someone says, "Oh, I love your style." And you're like, "My style? I ha- I have a style?" Like, and, and you know, when you look back objectively, of course, you know, of course we do, 'cause we've, I see the world one way, you see the world one way.

Tim Fulton 33:24Right.

Charlotte Belland 33:24And we're gonna, we're gonna commit that differently.

Tim Fulton 33:27Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 33:27Um, but when you're teaching, you have to make sure you don't, that, that whole mimicry thing, like, really kinda, you know-

Tim Fulton 33:35You're not trying to, uh, use or, uh, convey someone else's style.

Charlotte Belland 33:41Yeah. I mean, we do, we do master copies. So we will copy other artists' work to kinda see how people do it. But it's, it's in the act of actual doing the, the drawing and, you know, not, not drawing from your wrist, but drawing from your whole arm and your shoulder, and trusting it. Because the minute you start, 'cause that pivot point, having it farther away from your paper-

Tim Fulton 34:02Okay

Charlotte Belland 34:03... will get you a much more fluid line than if you try and use your hand or, like, your fingers to kinda move the, the brush around.

Tim Fulton 34:09Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 34:10Um, so that's, like, the number one thing when we're first working with, um, students and trying to get them to work with their drawing, is, like, using that whole arm. And sometimes students have been used to drawing really teeny-tiny, little things, you know?

Tim Fulton 34:21Right.

Charlotte Belland 34:21And you're like, "Okay, that's fine. But now let's, let's, let's make it a little bit larger. Let's find that..." And usually for artists it's like, well, number one, use non-precious paper.

Tim Fulton 34:31Okay.

Charlotte Belland 34:31Don't, don't buy that beautiful sketchbook that ha- that's leather bound and has, you know, um, 100%, you know, cotton rag, hot press, y- what, you know, whatever. Like, d- e- 'cause the problem with those books is that s- people get, it gets precious to them.

Tim Fulton 34:47Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 34:48And they're like, "Oh, I can't mess this up. I can't mess this up." And then if they're doing a lot of drawing they're like, "Oh, I'm using too much paper." So it's like, oh, my gosh. Okay. Just go buy copy paper-

Tim Fulton 34:56Right

Charlotte Belland 34:56... and a clipboard. Like, that's literally all I use. People, when they look at my, you know, my supplies, they're always like-

Tim Fulton 35:03Oh, I thought they would be artist supplies.

Charlotte Belland 35:04Yeah. And it's like, no. It's like, it's this-

Tim Fulton 35:05Those are office supplies.

Charlotte Belland 35:06Yeah. It's, like, tabloid paper from, you know, from a, you know, regular office supply store.

Tim Fulton 35:11Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 35:12Um, because then that non-preciousness allows you to get the really bad drawings out.

Tim Fulton 35:18Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 35:18'Cause all of us are gonna produce bad drawings, like, you know, just like, um, you're not gonna have a perfect, n- none of us have a perfect day. There's always gonna be one little, multiple little snafus that happen. It's the same thing for drawing.

Tim Fulton 35:28Right.

Charlotte Belland 35:29So by drawing, instead of drawing just one drawing, you draw 20 drawings. You, there's probably gonna be one in there that's probably pretty good. There might be 19 ones where you kinda go, "Ugh." Look at, you know.

Tim Fulton 35:39Right.

Charlotte Belland 35:39But that's fine, 'cause then those will lead you to the next and better drawing.

Tim Fulton 35:42But you also encourage folks to sort of have a, a, and not just students, but have a, a daily practice of sort of-

Charlotte Belland 35:49Yes

Tim Fulton 35:49... doing work. And, you know, if you're doing 20 little drawings every day, you know, couple weeks from now five of those, five of those 20 are gonna be good, right?

Charlotte Belland 35:59Absolutely. Yeah. It's, so the daily practice was something that, so, um, that started for me when m- a really good friend, uh, Kat Sheridan, took my phone and said, "You need to be on Instagram."

Tim Fulton 36:11Mm.

Charlotte Belland 36:11And I'm like, "What's Instagram?" And she's like, "You're drawing all the time. You need to, you know, you need to share this." I'm like, "Uh, okay." It, you know, so she helped me set it up. Um, and at first I'm like, I'm putting pictures of my dog, you know. And I'm like, "I don't know what I'm doing, you know, with, with this." And then I started, you know, then she kept, you know, "Hey, did you post a picture? Did you post a picture? Did you..." And I'm like, "Ugh." You know? So I-

Tim Fulton 36:32Yeah

Charlotte Belland 36:33... but the part that I owe her so much thanks for is that she kept- You know, pushing me. And then now it's such a habit that every day, you know, I'll do a very quick drawing, take a picture, write a little something quick, and then post it, and it all happens within, like, 20, at maximum, like, 30 minutes total.

Tim Fulton 36:51Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 36:51But it's, like, my own little daily routine that I get to do, and it's just mine. Like-

Tim Fulton 36:55Well, and it's ve-

Charlotte Belland 36:55Yeah

Tim Fulton 36:55... I mean, it's, I'm thinking of all the other little things where, like, folks are like, "I don't, I don't like how messy my apartment is," or, "I don't like how much I'm spending on lunch," or, "I want, need to go to the gym," and it's all about all those things get fixed with routine, right?

Charlotte Belland 37:10Absolutely.

Tim Fulton 37:10Um, and so that, you know, while it may not be easy to get there, uh, after you do it af- a certain amount of times, you'll see the results of, of where you wanna be. And so-

Charlotte Belland 37:23Yeah

Tim Fulton 37:23... and frankly, Cat ended up being a coach, right?

Charlotte Belland 37:26Absolutely.

Tim Fulton 37:26Cat ended up being the, the personal trainer or-

Charlotte Belland 37:29Yeah

Tim Fulton 37:29... Marie Kondo or whatever else- ... you wanna call her, that sort of got you there-

Charlotte Belland 37:34Yeah

Tim Fulton 37:34... uh, to, uh, uh, refine sort of the public part of your personal practice, and-

Charlotte Belland 37:41Yeah

Tim Fulton 37:41... I think that's great.

Charlotte Belland 37:42Yeah, it's a, it's an account, it's a wonderful accountability-

Tim Fulton 37:44Mm-hmm

Charlotte Belland 37:45... piece because if you do scroll back, like, back to, like, the 2015 mark, it's like, w- for me personally, I look at it, I'm like, "Woo," you know, 'cause if I you know, if one of those had popped up now, I'd be like, "Okay, something's wrong, Charlotte. Do you got, you know, is there-"

Tim Fulton 37:58Right

Charlotte Belland 37:58... you strained your m- arm muscle or whatever. But, but back then it was like, I was like, "Oh, wow, I really like this. I just take a picture of it." N- now, one thing I can say that, um, I've been a little bad about is that-

Tim Fulton 38:09Okay

Charlotte Belland 38:09... just like with any, you know, social media platform, you know, you show your best. So, like, there's those 19 bad drawings, then the 20th good one. Okay?

Tim Fulton 38:16Right.

Charlotte Belland 38:17Well, as a human trying to, you know, y- y- just that classic social media, um, trap that we get into is showing, um, just the best one.

Tim Fulton 38:28Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 38:28So I've been trying recently, 'cause it's really f- when you have, um, you know, this, uh, this community, like, I don't like calling them followers. Like, I know that's, that's how they put it on Instagram, but it's like-

Tim Fulton 38:38Yeah

Charlotte Belland 38:38... like, my, my community of people that believe in me and believe in my art, they will, you know, one person said, "Oh, I'd really like to see," you know, 'cause, like, they saw another little kind of drawing pop, pop up on the side of, uh, you know, a, a post. Like, "Can I see-"

Tim Fulton 38:51Yeah

Charlotte Belland 38:51... "that drawing?" And I was like, I'm like, "Oh, that's a-"

Tim Fulton 38:53Well, that one's not very good.

Charlotte Belland 38:54I was like, but I posted it.

Tim Fulton 38:55Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 38:55And it was like, the reception was so great that now I'm trying to just, like, post a raw picture, like, the raw page of drawings.

Tim Fulton 39:03Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 39:04Um-

Tim Fulton 39:04Well, and also hopefully a little bit of analysis into the process, too, right?

Charlotte Belland 39:08Yes.

Tim Fulton 39:08Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 39:09Yeah, and they do, and yeah, and that's the part that, um, 'cause I can get into a habit really quick where I'm like, I draw a picture, I post it, and then I just, you know, kind of m- move on to whatever-

Tim Fulton 39:16Move on

Charlotte Belland 39:16... task I have to do.

Tim Fulton 39:17Right.

Charlotte Belland 39:18Um, but that was the one, that's the one thing I really like about that community is that they, you know, 'cause they're right. 'Cause there's people starting out that are just like, "I don't wanna post any things. I don't feel comfortable doing it." I mean, I had-

Tim Fulton 39:28Absolutely

Charlotte Belland 39:29... I had the naive, um, you know, uh, fortune of Instagram had just started.

Tim Fulton 39:35Mm-hmm.

Charlotte Belland 39:35So, like, f- f- what did I-

Tim Fulton 39:37You organically have a lot of followers, right?

Charlotte Belland 39:40Well, yes.

Tim Fulton 39:40'Cause you were on there and-

Charlotte Belland 39:41It's very organic.

Tim Fulton 39:41Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 39:42Yeah, and that's the other, uh, the nice thing is, like, that's a very organic, you know, um, like, a lot of companies will, a lot of art supply companies will approach me, and they're like, "Oh, we wanna see your statistics, and blah, blah, blah, and all this other kind of stuff," and I'm like, "Uh, uh..."

Tim Fulton 39:54It's not that kind of account.

Charlotte Belland 39:56I'm like-

Tim Fulton 39:56Right

Charlotte Belland 39:56... yeah, I'm like, "I don't have access to statistics." They're like, "Well, how'd you grow it?" And it's like, it just ha- it literally, it's, it's-

Tim Fulton 40:01I was on there early and often.

Charlotte Belland 40:03And often.

Tim Fulton 40:03Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 40:03Early and often, right. I was, I showed up, and exactly, it was very organic.

Tim Fulton 40:07Yeah. Well, and I, again, that extends to the success that somebody may see in a per- personal practice is, like, you gotta keep doing it and doing the work.

Charlotte Belland 40:15Yes.

Tim Fulton 40:16Again, regardless of the field. Um, just to pivot one more time, talk to me about w- where you see the Columbus art community now, um, and the good things that are happening there, the bad things that are-

Charlotte Belland 40:28Sure

Tim Fulton 40:29... happening there, and what's going on.

Charlotte Belland 40:31The, the good thing that I see about the Columbus community is that there is w- there is such a diverse definition of art-

Tim Fulton 40:41Mm-hmm

Charlotte Belland 40:42... that it's not just visual art. And, and I know that sometimes for co- you know, for communities that can be like, "Oh, of course," but it's like, no, it's like, there are so many ways that humans can express themselves artistically, and it's, doesn't mean that it's v- visual. It can also be, you know, audio. It can be, um, you know, the act of movement.

Tim Fulton 41:01Mm-hmm.

Charlotte Belland 41:01It can be y- a variety of things, and Columbus celebrates that. Uh, you know, and it's, I c- I can't, you know, and I, and I can't say, uh, you know, enough about, um, what the Greater Columbus Arts Council has, you know, um, offered to me and our, and, and the, the, the campaign artists-

Tim Fulton 41:18Mm-hmm

Charlotte Belland 41:18... um, from this year and years past. It's, it, it really, it's inspiring to walk into that room and see the other, you know, see the other artists and hear them-

Tim Fulton 41:27Yeah

Charlotte Belland 41:27... talk about their work and their process, and you're like, it's, it's empowering. It's like people-

Tim Fulton 41:33Yeah

Charlotte Belland 41:33... people always ask me, they're like, "Why do, you know, why do you stay in Columbus?" And I'm like, I was like, "Well, you have to, you, you show up and find out."

Tim Fulton 41:40Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 41:40You know, 'cause we, you know, um, so my wife and I, we've, we've gone to different places in the country and tried to, you know, maybe we wanna live here, or maybe we wanna live there. And we would get there, and it would be, a lot of doors didn't, the, and I'm not saying the door, I would expect that the doors to fling open at any-

Tim Fulton 41:57Right

Charlotte Belland 41:57... you know, at any places. But I expected to have a little bit more of a interaction with, with folks. But, you know, th- you come back to Columbus, and, you know, you just kinda, you show a genuine interest in what a person's doing or what they're working on or, or whatever it is, and then, oh my gosh, like, just connections happen. And-

Tim Fulton 42:14Yeah

Charlotte Belland 42:15... you know, it, it's, it's, I d- you know, no place is perfect, of course. Like, you know, I'm not, you know, saying that, but it's just, I, I really believe in the art community that we have here, and I'm so honored to be a part of it.

Tim Fulton 42:28What are the things that you think that Columbus could do better at?

Charlotte Belland 42:33I think we can, to, some- something we can do better with is, that's a great question. I would say Connecting, connecting, um, connecting that not-for-profit world with, or sorry, non-for-profit world-

Tim Fulton 42:51Mm-hmm

Charlotte Belland 42:52... with artists that are willing to, um, participate. Uh, and not n- not huge things or whatnot, but like-

Tim Fulton 42:59Okay

Charlotte Belland 42:59... because the catch is not-for-profits, obviously they have a delineated source of income-

Tim Fulton 43:03Yeah

Charlotte Belland 43:04... that they're, the people who have pr- the people who have provided them that money have, you know, gifted them that money, have specific restrictions about what they can pay to use.

Tim Fulton 43:13Yeah.

Charlotte Belland 43:13And I think that there is ways, you know, art as a, a tool for healing and art as a tool for community-

Tim Fulton 43:23Okay

Charlotte Belland 43:24... that I wish there was a way that the, the, the non-for-profit group and the art, like, the artists that, the, the, the volunteer army or artists that wanna help-

Tim Fulton 43:35Yeah

Charlotte Belland 43:35... that there could be ways of kinda connecting that, but then offering, um, the guidance necessary for those artists to understand that they still need to provide that company, you know, the, their, their invoice of what they did.

Tim Fulton 43:47Right.

Charlotte Belland 43:47But this, but then you list it as N Gratis at the, you know-

Tim Fulton 43:50Yeah

Charlotte Belland 43:50... as the, as the final total, because then that offers an opportunity for then that company to come back and, or the, you know, the, the, the group to come back to the artist and say, "Thank you for your donation."

Tim Fulton 43:59Right.

Charlotte Belland 43:59And it has a, it has a, a value.

Tim Fulton 44:00There's a tax implication there and-

Charlotte Belland 44:02Yeah

Tim Fulton 44:02... right.

Charlotte Belland 44:02I think there's an organic connection. I, I may see it happening a little bit, but I would love to see it happen more.

Tim Fulton 44:08Okay. Great. Charlotte, thank you so much for your time.

Charlotte Belland 44:11Absolutely. My pleasure.

Tim Fulton 44:22Thank you for listening to the Confluence Cast presented by Columbus Underground. Again, you can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Please rate, subscribe, share this episode of the Confluence Cast with your friends, family, contacts, enemies, your favorite illustrator. If you're interested in sponsoring the Confluence Cast, get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info@theconfluencecast.com. Our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson. Our producer is Philip Cogley. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. Have a great week.