Ellen RIXFORD

Ellen Rixford

Ellen's 2011 Autobiography

Ellen Rixford received a BFA from Cooper Union Art School in 1966, and after a brief stint as a graphic designer at Scientific American Magazine, went freelance as a 3 dimensional designer, sculptor, and illustrator, later a designer and builder of mechanical puppets and automata as well.

She works in many media: wood, metal, cast resin, soft sculpture, paper sculpture, found object sculpture, and mixed media. Her studio's mechanical pieces appeared in Fortunoff's Holiday Seasonal windows and New York and regional stores for a dozen years. Her other clients include: Business Week, Fortune, Institutional Investor, The NY Times, Readers' Digest, Time Magazine, Popular Science, Scientific American, Discover Magazine, United Technologies, Oxirane, Grey Advertising, Saatchi & Saatchi, Ogilvie and Mather, BBDO, Reebok, Exxon, United Jewish Appeal, Central Park Zoo, and many other ad agencies and corporate clients. Her work is in many corporate and private art collections, and in two museums: The Ballard Institute of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut, and the Toy Museum of New York.

Rixford's work has appeared in many industry publications, here and in Japan and China, including Illustration and Te Waza (Japanese magazines), Art Doll Magazine, Doll Reader, Art Doll Quarterly, Display Design Ideas, and Display Magazine. Her book, 3-Dimensional Illustration, published by Watson Guptill in 1993, is used as a reference work and textbook in several art schools. She is now working on a new book on mechanical movements for puppets, mechanical figures, and automata.

Rixford has shown her work in several New York art galleries and in a one person show at the Society of Illustrators. She was invited to give lecture tours and have a one person show in Japan, and has also lectured and toured extensively in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. She has taught 3 dimensional design and puppetry in Parsons School of Design, and the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

http://www.ellenrixford.com

Ellen’s Update (2021)

Since the last meet-up, a few new developments. In 2009, after the death of my wonderful Chinese husband, May Lu, I began work on what became a very large book: Figures in the Fourth Dimension (www.figuresinthefourthdimension.com). It started as a workshop on mechanical movements during a Puppeteers of America festival....they have festivals every year, national events on odd years, regional events on even years. The workshop attracted a lot of attention, and, as I had previously written a book, 3Dimensional Illustration, the participants swarmed me and begged me

to produce a book using the material I had presented. After doing some market research, and finding that no book of that kind existed, I began work. Little by little, other artists who also were building kinetic figurative art...puppets and automata.... wanted in on the project. I made it an absolute requirement that to be included, an artist would have to provide: not only good photos of work, but detailed drawings, showing how the piece actually was constructed, and actually moved. In this way, I believed, artists could learn from each other. As more and more artists sent work, and did extraordinarily good drawings, I accumulated enough (killer) material to begin to approach major museums which had, in their collections, some of the most famous works of art in the world. At last I had a strong collection...work from about 30 world-class artists, and 3 world-class museums. I included a chapter on our studio's work too.

I had to learn a lot of new stuff....mechanical drawing, graphic design, book design, very exact photoshopping, and interfacing with a printer. The book ended up taking 6 long years of hard time at the computer, and a large bite out of my

retirement savings. But fortunately enough people began to buy it so that it looks like it may actually make money. And it made friends...around the world. One of these is Falk Keuten, a blogger on kinetic work of all kinds....puppets, automata, moving sculpture. His blog is followed enthusiastically in over 100 countries... blog title is Spiel und Kunst mit Mechanik II.

This wonderful site has thousands of entries, and is a kind of far-reaching survey and history of all kinds of superb work, from all kinds of artists. It is well worth investigating.

As the book was nearing completion, one of the book artists suggested I send Falk a few chapters. He began to blog about it, and the European, South American and Asian markets opened up. I was, of course relieved and delighted, and after a year of emailing back and forth, invited him to visit me in New York for an AutomataCon event. We fell in love at first sight, and after five years of acting like we are married, we will, if the German authorities agree, make it legal.

Meantime, because of the dark events we have all experienced this past year, and because of the frightening medical policies in some states, I have become an advocate for freedom of informed medical choice. Although this position doesn't endear me to some, I feel that this is one of the defining issues of our time, and I must speak out, and stand up for the many who have been terribly damaged by the lockdowns, and by injury resulting from vaccines which have not been truly safety tested, and for which their manufacturers have no liability. After thinking about this very hard, and for a long time, I felt I could not live with myself if I didn't stand up for what I believe is right.

So that's about it for now. I wish for peace and happiness for all my fellow alumni....as much as possible given present conditions. Bless you all, and hope to meet you soon....in person. With hugs and kisses.