love letters to storytellers #1 - nicholas friesen

This post was initially sent August 1, 2021 via Mailchimp. It was my very first newsletter about my publishing journey!

featured storyteller

Hello! Welcome to love letters to storytellers, my newsletter to keep you updated on my projects, and to introduce you to storytellers that inspire me.

My first featured storyteller is my friend Nick! I met Nick when we worked together at a business association office downtown. We worked with our tiny team to promote and support the independent businesses in the area. I was the administrator, and Nick was the marketing person. We quickly bonded once I discovered Nick was a huge Star Wars nerd, and later on, we connected over our shared introversion and love of creative writing. I am lucky to have him as a sort of surrogate big brother. 😊

Nick has told stories throughout his life in a variety of mediums; music, animation, art, film, and writing. When we worked together, Nick worked on a podcast where he interviewed business owners or non-profit directors in the downtown area about why they worked there and told their stories. One episode was an interview with the director of the local jazz music festival, and Nick was able to make the director feel comfortable enough to talk about his grappling with faith and theology. When I asked Nick about it later, even Nick was surprised the jazz festival director shared such a personal part of his story. I was always amazed at his ability to listen to people well enough that they would spill a part of their souls to him.

One of Nick’s main storytelling mediums is animation. Over a decade ago he started his Olivia Sea project, an animated avatar of himself that posts art to Instagram, creates music, and releases animated music videos. Nick is now working on an animated film of Olivia’s story. One of my favourite Olivia Sea songs is “Timid Cyclist.”

Nick’s approach to art is so unique and I wondered what makes him create such weird things. He said it’s mostly a logistics thing, trying to figure out what works best in what medium; animation works well when he wants to include time travel, robots and going to Mars. He also just likes doing different things. “I want to see a thing I haven’t seen before. If I’m going to tell a story, it’s going to be a bit different.”

The big project Nick is working on is an animated film featuring Olivia Sea, which is “big and crazy but also grounded in real, relatable things” like insecurity, anxiety, friendship, and being a woman in the music industry. “I needed to make it, because if I don’t then I’ll think about being sad. I’m happy when I draw.”

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Nicholas Friesen is an illustrator/animator from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. His work is predominantly hand drawn and digitally coloured, but he also experiments with watercolour, pencil crayon, textiles, and marker. Friesen’s animation is produced the “old school” way – every frame is drawn by hand.

His visuals have appeared in The Globe and Mail, Uptown, The Uniter, Stylus, and on such blogs as Screaming in All Caps, WordPress Discover, and Jaded and Elated. They have also been projected onto the sides of buildings and IMAX screens.

He has created hand drawn animated music videos for Polaris Music Prize nominee Greg Macpherson, The Sorels, Sierra Noble, Sprig, Ace Burpee, Olivia Sea, and more. His animated projects include the short series Calls From My Cat (Andrews McMeel Universal) and the upcoming feature length narrative American Youth.

His first book as an illustrator, The Beaver Book, is available summer 2021.

Visit nicholastronaut.wordpress.com for more information.

updates

One of the things I've been having a lot of fun doing lately while waiting on edits for my book, this is a love story (publishing includes so much waitinggg) is my instagram poetry series, love letters. The challenge for me is trying to find unique ways to express gratitude to every little thing in life - from cankerworms to sunsets. I also love poetry, because you can be talking about three different things at once. Here are a few of my favourite posts since I started the project, but you can check out all of the love letters at instagram.com/asherlockwrites.