Joanna Priestley is an award-winning, independent animator and teacher. She currently resides in Portland, Oregon.
She trained for printmaking at Rhode Island School of Design and received a BFA in painting from UC Berkley, graduating with honors. In addition, she received an MFA in Experimental Animation and the Louis B. Mayer Award from the California Institute of the Arts. She was mentored under Jules Engel. During her career, she has produced and directed over 19 animated films, most of which have been screened at film festivals worldwide. Her work has also been broadcast on PBS and the BBC. In addition, she has done animation pieces for Sesame Street as well as for music videos for Tears for Fears, and Joni Mitchell.
In 1988, after graduating from CalArts, she returned to Portland to fund with the help of her friends, "ASIFA-Northwest", the ASIFA chapter in the Northwest region of the United States which comprised Portland, Seattle, Vancouver B.C., and the cities in between. It is now known as ASIFA-Portland. She is an ardent proponent of animation as an art form and has presented papers at the Society for Animation Studies Conference and works to improve the status of animation in academia, museums, galleries and the media worldwi
Priestley's influences include Oskar Fischinger, Len Lye, Norman McLaren and Jules Engel. She has taught at Art Institute of Portland, Pacific Northwest College of Art, Northwest Film Center/Portland Art Museum and Volda College.
Joanna Priestley: Filmography
The Rubber Stamp Film (1983, 7 minutes, stamps on paper)
The Dancing Bulrushes (1985, 5 minutes, sand animation)
Voices (1985, 4 minutes, drawings on paper)
Jade Leaf (1985, 5 minutes, computer animation)
Times Square (1986, 4 minutes, computer animation)
Music Video Segments: Sequence director/animator for Blashfield and Associates. "Good Friends" (Joni Mitchell, 1985, photocopy animation)
"Sowing the Seeds of Love" (Tears for Fears, 1988, photocopy animation)
Candyjam (1988, 7 minutes, drawings, puppets and object animation)
She-Bop (1988, 8 minutes, drawings and puppet animation)
All My Relations (1990, 5 minutes, drawings on paper with 3-D frames)
Sesame Street Productions: "The Lumps: Rejection Victories" (1990, 30 seconds) "The Lumps: Social Skills" (1990, 30 seconds, drawings on paper with 3-D frames).
After the Fall (1991, 6 minutes, drawings on paper, location shooting)
Pro and Con (1993, 9 minutes, 2-D puppets, drawings and clay painting)
Grown Up (1993, 7 minutes, drawings on paper, pixillated hands and object animation)
Hand Held (1995, 7 minutes, drawings on paper with pixillated hands)
Television Series Title: "Making Peace" (1996, 60 seconds, drawings on paper)
Utopia Parkway (1997, 5 minutes, drawings on paper. replacement animation)
Surface Dive (2000, 71/2 minutes, drawings on paper and replacement sculptures)
Andaluz (2004, 4.5 min., drawings on paper)
Dew Line (2005, 6 min., 2-D computer)
Extended Play (2007, 4 min, 2-D computer)
Streetcar Named Perspire (2007, 6.5 min., 2-D computer)
Missed Aches (2009, 4.min., 2-D computer)
Eye Liner (2010, 4.min., 2-D computer))
She is married to director, Paul Harrod. Among her hobbies outside animation, she enjoys gardening, herbalism, and Burning Man.