The Simpsons invade TAM
By
Alec Clayton
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| The cloud wall with “The Simpsons” animation cels, photo by Gabi Clayton |
There’s never been a show like Bart
at TAM: Animating America’s Favorite Family at Tacoma Art Museum. One of
the larger galleries at TAM has been turned into the home of the Simpsons:
Homer, Bart, Marge, Lisa and Maggie, and many of the 80 some odd supporting characters
from America’s longest running family show, “The Simpsons.”
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| Museum visitor contemplated Marge's hair. Photo courtesy Tacoma Art Museum |
Not
only does the show feature more than 100 created-by-hand animation cels, scripts
and drawings by Matt Groening and his team of animators, but visitors are
greeted by a life-size sculptural recreation of the living room sofa featured
in the opening scene of every “Simpsons” episode, brilliantly painted walls,
fluffy cartoon clouds suspended from the ceiling and many other additions to
the art on display.
Wall
texts and hands-on displays provide a history of the show, now in its 30th
season, and examples of how the art is developed from preliminary sketches to
finished animation.
Full-color
animation is created by painting on cels, transparent celluloid sheets that can
be overlapped with other painted cels to create changing scenes. A background
of a swimming pool, for example, can be overlaid with cels that picture Lisa
and her friends swimming, or a scene picturing the town of Springfield can be
overlaid with various pictures of Bart skateboarding. This prevents the artists
from having to laboriously recreate each scene over and over. The fascinating
thing about seeing the cels displayed as art is that you see actual
three-dimensional images complete with cast shadows, which is marvelous to look
at and something never seen in the televised cartoons. As another example of
this, there is one on view in which one of Bart’s eyes is on a separate cel
from the rest of his face and casts a shadow on his cheek, and another in which
each of his legs is on a different plane.
The
gallery walls have been painted in the colors of the cartoons, brilliant blue
and yellow and pink. The large cut-out clouds hang from the ceiling in front of
a sky blue wall upon which more than 15 animated cels are displayed. The
adjacent wall bright chartreuse. Elsewhere are vivid yellow and fuchsia walls
and standing panels, and these primary colors are offset in the cels by more
muted tones of blue and purple and teal that keep the overall effect from being
too bombastic.
It
is well known in this part of the country that Groening is a native of Portland
and a graduate of The Evergreen State College in Olympia. He created the
original series as a series of animated shorts for “The Tracy Ulman Show” in
1987. “The Simpsons” as a stand-alone series began in 1989.
Throughout
the run of the show there are ongoing activities such as studio facilities that
allow children to make their own flipbooks and cartoons, a special day for
homeschool children, cartoon trivia night, and an illustration-drawing rally
where visitors can watch local illustrators at work and talk to them about
their processes. All special events are detailed on the TAM website.
This
show is a laugh riot, and the art, if not on a level with the pop imagery of
Warhol and Lichtenstein, is pretty darn close.
Bart
at TAM, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday-Sunday, through Oct. 27, $18 adults, $15
students and seniors, free for military and children 5 and younger, free Neighborhood
Nights Thursday from 5-8 p.m., Tacoma Art Museum, 1701 Pacific Avenue, Tacoma,
253.272.4258, www.tacomaartmuseum.org.
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