Former Montessori student Ellen Coons chats with Montessori Post about her Montessori background, inspiration to pursue animation and future plans.
Ellen Coons, a former Montessori student, celebrated a Children’s and Family Emmy Awards nomination and win for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation for her work on Apple Studios’ Shape Island.
Tell us about your Montessori background. I attended Montessori school from Kindergarten all the way through 12th grade: Kennedy Heights Montessori (pre-school & kindergarten), Sands Montessori (1st-6th) and Clark Montessori (7th-12th) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
I think the emphasis these schools gave to hands-on learning and community cooperation taught me how to interact properly with the world– how to work well with other people and solve problems both collaboratively and independently.
What is your current profession, and what led you there? I work in stopmotion animation, as an animator and also sometimes as a set builder or art director/designer mostly for television and commericials. At Clark Montessori we had something called “Senior Project,” an independent study which spans the entirety of the 12th grade, and it’s designed to make you think about where your passions lie and what sort of career you’d like to aim for. Through childhood, the adults are always asking “what do you want to be when you grow up?” to which I never had the same answer for long… but Senior Project helped me consider the question more concretely as something I had to follow through with. I changed my topic several times, but ultimately chose to research stopmotion animation and make a film of my own. After graduating, I went to an art school, The College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan, and have been chasing the dream since.
What parts of your upbringing or education have helped you in your current role/s? At Clark Montessori we did a lot of group projects and “group initiatives” which was the term used for different sorts of problem-solving games done together as a class. I think building a human pyramid was my favorite one. It allowed for the students to practice playing different roles, sometimes the leader and sometimes the follower. This helped me understand a bit how I fit into the workplace as an adult, how to understand other people and the challenges they face in the roles they play. It’s pretty easy to be critical of your boss, but it’s not so easy to be emphatic to their position and understand the pressure that comes with being a leader. The same applies to acting in a leadership role, you have to understand what you’re asking of the team members and how much you really need them and appreciate what they give for you and the success of a project. I don’t think most kids get to practice this until much later–in most schools the teacher is the boss and that’s that. This emphasis on community starts young, in classes with students of multiple grades together. The younger students are expected to ask for help from the older students who’ve learned the material already, and the older students get the benefit of revisiting what they’re learned and acting as leaders to the younger students.
What are some things that you have learned since you graduated high school? College? I’ve learned how lucky I was to have the education I got! School was fun, you get to use your brain in all kinds of different ways, do many kinds of things in one day, it’s competitive but motivating more than stressful. I’m still looking for this in the real world, that sense of community that we had at school. It wasn’t perfect but we were all in it together, all the teachers really cared about their students and their jobs and we looked out for each other.
What is next for you? What do you plan to accomplish next? I’ve always wanted to do more freelance projects. My husband and I have done a few together: he’s a director of photography, I’ll do the designs and build and animate, he’ll do the post-production and the sound. It’s quite fun and gives a great sense of accomplishment to be responsible for the whole animation. Mostly we contract for other studios, which has been great for learning specific parts of the stopmotion process, but more freelance and more creative independence is what I’d like.
What are some pieces of advice you would give high school students today? Who you are now is who you’ll always be. Don’t worry too much or doubt what you are capable of, trust your natural interests and trust your ability to develop them over time. There is an important place for you in this world.
Where can we learn more about you or your work? My online presence needs work, but there’s an Instagram for our freelance work @quiet.de.light and our website should be up soon: www.quietdelight.com. My personal Instagram is @cartoonraccoon and my online portfolio is www.cartoonraccoon.com.
Photo credits include Tommi Cahill Arneson courtesy of Ancient Order of the Wooden Skull studio and NATAS courtesy of Marc Bryan-Brown photography.
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