Ric Robertson's clip for his latest song, "Anna Rose," is not your typical music video. It's among the first stop-motion animations using borosilicate glass. The glass pieces were created by artist Clinton Roman.
"Clinton and Ric used glass frit, basically glass fragments used to bond glass and for decorative effect, to make a glittering landscape for the video," the press release from Free Dirt Records explains. "The glass figurine made to represent the Anna Rose character was small enough that, rather than firing the figure in a kiln, Clinton was able to use a hand torch to bend and pose the figure."
The mellow high tune is about a woman with an opioid addiction:
She goes higher and higher
Hangin' on a codeine kitestring
Without even knowing
Up and up she goes
Every now and again she'll twirl in the wind and a whisper sounds
Someone calling from the distant ground
Anna come back home
Anna Rose
The New Orleans-based singer-songwriter released Carolina Child in July. It includes "Anna Rose" and nine other tracks. The video collaboration was a result of Robertson's travels which landed him in Eugene, the capitol of cannabis glass blowing in the U.S., where he met Roman. Robinson's been "recreating the rambling Americana roadtrips of the Dead and Ken Kesey, holed up in Kesey’s hometown of Eugene, Oregon jamming with friends and riffing on Jerry Garcia and David Grisman tunes."
During the recent spate of wildfires in Oregon, Roman’s home studio in Blue River went up in smoke.
Update: Upon posting the article we received a message from Aaron Evans saying he was the first person to make a stop-motion video using glass. Check out Evans' Glassmation short, "One Tribe," below.
