The lights came up at SIGGRAPH’s biggest screening, and the couple who just won an award stood at the front of the theater while a thousand people left through the back. I walked up. Most people didn’t. A dispatch about networking — and why nothing that actually worked this week looked anything like it. Part two, from inside SIGGRAPH 2026.
Showing Up: Most People Didn’t Read More »
The convention center is built, lit, and empty. Tomorrow, SIGGRAPH — the biggest computer graphics conference in the world — fills it with thousands of people. I’m here a day early with a camera, boxes of the conference’s own history I drove from Ohio, and a badge that didn’t exist four months ago. All of it started with one message. The first dispatch in a new series: Showing Up.
Showing Up: Miles to SIGGRAPH Read More »
When the next wave of AI in animation hits, whose names will we know? The US conversation has a number — 118,500 jobs at risk by 2026, built from a survey of 300 US executives. The global animation workforce is over a million people. Most of them are not in that number, the headlines, or the room where the next AI model is being designed. Essay 3 in Losing Each Other.
Main Crew: An Animator’s Letter on Who Counts in Animation Read More »
The second letter in the ‘Losing Each Other’ series. An animator who curated thirty years of computer-graphics film for SIGGRAPH on the shape of the AI wave, the platform that is about to inherit it, and the fight the artist coalition is currently missing.
I Have Seen This Film: An Animator’s Letter on Platform AI Read More »
Jorge Gutierrez pulled out of Punky Duck on Friday after a wave of online hostility around his use of AI in animation. In this first piece of a three-part series, an animator’s letter from inside both the craft and the new tools — what I am learning about the discourse, where I part ways with the response, and what I think the corporations are quietly building while we strangle each other over experiments.
Losing Each Other: An Animator’s Letter on AI in Animation Read More »
Every project tool an indie game developer reaches for is almost the right shape — and almost-right is the shape of a tool that drains you every time you open it. So Micro built his own. The Cabin is a free, open-source project tracker shaped around how game development actually works, grown out of DWELLING, the game it was first built to hold. This piece is the announcement: what The Cabin is, who it’s for, and why a tool for making creative work should be free.
The Cabin: A Place to Keep the Work Read More »
It started with a floor that was far past saving — and somehow became a night that put the world back in order. What began as a quick cleaning impulse turned into a small storm of frustration, movement, and grace. In the middle of it all, a quiet kind of care revealed itself — wordless, steady, and real. This piece explores how love can live in function, how help can arrive without ceremony, and how the smallest act can turn chaos into calm.
The Night We Cleaned the World Back Into Place Read More »
There’s a kind of quiet heroism in simply continuing — in finding ways to live inside the in-between. In this personal reflection, Jared writes about the space between recovery and routine, where healing isn’t a straight line but a conversation between body, mind, and motion. Through night drives on wet Maine roads, small acts of care from loved ones, and moments of still curiosity, he redefines what it means to endure. This piece is about being human in the process — not waiting for the light at the end, but realizing it’s been with you all along.
A Neurodivergent Life: What Healing Looks Like Beyond the Diagnosis Read More »
Minecraft started as a creative outlet for me, but over the years—especially through building and running Wildercraft—it’s become something deeper. This piece is a reflection on the real-life lessons I’ve picked up from a game that’s anything but simple. I write about collaboration, community, failure, leadership, and the quiet joy of starting over—again and again. It’s not about strategy or survival mechanics. It’s about what we carry with us from the worlds we build, the people we build them with, and the strange, pixelated magic of a place where nothing is permanent, but everything matters.
Creative Survival: What Minecraft Teaches Me Every Time I Log In Read More »
In Between Fire and Focus: Navigating Life with Bipolar and ADHD, Jared Kuvent shares a deeply personal exploration of living creatively and authentically with neurodivergence. Through reflections on grief, reinvention, and artistic growth—from his years at Nickelodeon to a transformative journey through caregiving, graduate studies in Australia, and a quiet reset in Maine—Jared illuminates the complexity and beauty of a mind in motion. Weaving in insights from mentors like Danny Butt and his own lived experience, this essay offers a powerful meditation on becoming, belonging, and building a life that holds it all.
Between Fire and Focus: Navigating Life with Bipolar and ADHD Read More »
