A still from Dancing Cats - Go Kitty Go!. Courtesy of YouTube.

jb: Are you suggesting that "art" cannot be appreciated as such by the masses that flock to YouYube to get their fix of dancing cats? 

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There's been a lot of response to my last article. This really interesting challenge just arrived in my inbox. In fact, it’s so strong that I’m publishing it in full.

Still image from Shimmer Box Drive (2007) by Steven Woloshen.

Steven Woloshen creates animation in cars, at work, in airports, on planes… in other words wherever and whenever he has ten consecutive minutes to play. 

15 May 2010 by Caroline Leaf (oil on canvas, 24 x 24 in.) Courtesy of the artist.

This October, at the Ottawa International Animation Festival, I finally had an opportunity to meet Caroline Leaf in person. Her films were among the first animated shorts I fell in love with when I discovered animation. The Street and The Owl Who Married A Goose, to name just two of her many films, are among my favourites even to this day.

Several years ago I’d heard that she had moved on from filmmaking and was now painting. I was curious to know what was behind the shift, and even more curious to see her current work. 

A still from Noteboek, 2008, by Evelien Lohbeck

A close encounter with the next five of twenty-five YouTube Play award winners, films beginning with L through N.

Raymond Pettibon, Repeater Pencil, 2004. Still from singular screen animation with sound. Courtesy David Zwirner, New York, and Regen Projects, Los Angeles.

The Drawing Center (New York) in collaboration with Smart Spaces, the not-for-profit art space that uses vacant store fronts as their roaming venue, is presenting a show of animated shorts called Framed: Drawings In Motion.

A still from the short film Kantata by Maria Lassnig

They're calling it a "paradigm shift in contemporary art", "a new sensibility in the art of our time". Galleries and their curators are starting to notice animation. It's been a long time coming.

A still from the short film Deuce

So you wanna watch movies, eh? (Is my Canadian accent showing?) Well, pull up your potato chips and have a sit down...

Lascaux caves: image of aurochs

Could the paleolithic men and women who created these rock wall paintings have been the prehistoric ancestors of current animation artists?

A still from the short documentary film Soundswalkers by Raquel Castro.

To say that Soundwalkers, a fascinating film by director and sound researcher Raquel Castro, sensitives us to the soundscape of our modern world is to minimize its achievement.