All work shot, edited, fx created (with some great drag and drop overlays) and animated by me.

A round up of this year and beyond. A mix of styles, vibes, and complexity. Every brand and experience is different and good motion graphics should reflect that.

Amazon Ads shot, edited, motion graphics created, logo and packaging designed by me. 2021-22

Selected Social Media edits

Maybe my favorite art installation in the US. The Painted Desert projects continues reimagine and reinvent itself and each trip through Gray Mountain is an event.

It was impossible to tell one day from the next, they all seem to be one long summer. My mom would drop us off at a place good for cliff jumping called the Coves and the hours in the sun passed. From the Coves we could see Lone Rock; the iconic tower above the water and the adjacent beach. It sparkled from the windows and metal of trucks, boats and ATVs, that seemed constant, the whining pitch of two stroke engines and the scream of speedboats across the man made waves. Into night head lights floated back and forth across the beach cutting through the fires at the water’s edge.

We were told that the lake could one day die but like the surrounding sandstone rock we expected it to move at a more geologic pace. Years of drought and what would eventually be called "climate change", a phrase so benign as to be useless, moves at a speed no one wants to accept. Acceptance seems besides the point now. It's common to hear amongst those that live in Page, if not verbatim at least the sentiment, of a phrase used in the Dust Bowl: if it rains. If it rains...If it snows...just a good winter snowpack in Colorado. Wishes. Prayers. The lake recedes all the same.

James Beard Thanksgiving Highlight Reel.

In November 2018 I traveled to NYC to shoot at the James Beard House, former home of the famous chef James Beard, founder of the Good Food Awards. I followed culinary students from The Art Institute culinary programs as they prepared a Thanksgiving dinner that was unforgettable. Always happy to be back in one of my favorite cities.

Travel Postcard: U.S. HWY89.

The earth has begun to reclaim most of the parking lots in Gray Mountain and with time the buildings too but for now it remain in the early stages of decay. As I sweat through perfecting a gimble shot a group of people stop to inspect the apocalyptic scene; an abandoned hotel and gas station. While I do my fourth take I hear windows begin to break. It's hard not to be irritated. You can't help but wonder, do they feel comfortable because it's abandoned on indigenous land or do they just feel comfortable? (If you have to ask yes they were and yes, they were.)

Over the last 30 years I've passed Gray Mountain a thousand times while traveling to Page. What seemed like a decent business dwindled over the years, parking lots emptied and the vibrant southwestern paint faded and shuttered. Not long after art work began to appear on the boarded up gas station. Every few years a installation would be completely made anew. Though most of the artist's names or handles are hard to find, Jetsonorama remains a constant presence with large black & white large format prints depicting Diné life. It's a reminder that our assumptions of creative life; a thing thought to be mostly cloistered in large cities, are deeply flawed and the existence of rural and indigenous artists, if not next to a major highway, mostly go unnoticed. The people breaking windows and taking selfies in the abandoned rooms never came near the art work. Perhaps because I was dressed in black, sweating heavily and doing laps around the installation. Maybe to them even if it's on an abandoned building its still just "graffiti".

Collected motion graphics projects created in After Effects and Premiere.

Brands: NASM, AFAA, Blacklustre.

Social media/marketing video project for a new restaurant & bar located in Page, Arizona, near the insta-famous Horseshoe Bend, Antelope Canyon and Lake Powell.

A long form video portrait of the founder of Blacklustre Clothing Company, a black owned and operated clothing brand that specializes in black positive apparel. My hope is that is portrait shows that intention and experience matter; most brands can build a story but few actually live one that is as varied and atypical as Steven Cowan.

blacklustre.com

A short video portrait of my friend and former co-worker Lisette Barbera. Both of us spent a lot time in the specialty coffee industry and like so many industries it struggles with representation, racism and misogyny. This is just a tiny portion of a great conversation and I suspect in the coming years more and more people will be hearing from Lisette. I can't wait. 
She recently received a scholarship from the SCA (Specialty Coffee Association) provided to members of the coffee industry who are marginalized by society standards.