“…good enough”
Artist Work from the Career of Curt Enderle Exhibit dates – Location Library Building Gallery
Artist statement
Near the end of the recent “Pinocchio” film, the Cricket is told by the Black Rabbit that he’s had a good life. Good enough,” was the Cricket’s response—a reflection back on everything that had come before.
In theatre, commercials and film, that phrase is often used to cut off the work. The variations. The what ifs. We’ve run out of time or money or both, and what you see before you is going to be just fine.
As an “artist” looking back on a “career” for an exhibit like this, perhaps I see the good enoughs that could have been better, as well as the good enoughs from various projects that have actually resulted in a decent body of work.
As a collaborative artist, I have a difficult time pointing to the work and claiming it as my own. Sometimes I use the word artistic to describe my contribution, rather than Artist with a capital “A.” I have been part of creating works of art, but am I an artist? Hmmmm.
And am I able to separate myself from that work? Or is it the work that defines who I am?
Yeah, I’m not really sure. And so, this collection of examples of things I have helped to create includes process, artifacts of OTHER artists work, as well as images of the finished products. Some of it is obscenely rough, some of it is too finished for a step along the way to the ACTUAL art. But all of it examples of what, for a moment, was good enough.
Artist bio
Trained as a set designer for live theater and based in Portland, Ore., BAFTA-nominated Curt Enderle has had a role in generating more than 13 hours of stop-motion animated content. Most recently, he worked with Guy Davis as co-production designers for Guillermo del Toro’s “Pinocchio,” a stop-motion feature produced at Portland studio ShadowMachine, which premiered in London in October 2022 and streamed worldwide on Netflix in December. In addition to the BAFTA nomination, the production design has been honored with Best Animation Production Design by the Art Directors Guild and Best Production Design – Feature by ASIFA’s Annie (animation) awards.
Past film work includes art directing Wes Anderson’s 2018 stop-motion animated film “Isle of Dogs” and Laika’s 2014 stop-motion hybrid release, “The Boxtrolls.” He also served as one of the set designers (draftsperson) for the studio’s 2012 “ParaNorman. ” Recent episodic includes the first series (sans pilot) of “The Shivering Truth” written by PFFR’s Vernon Chatman at ShadowMachine Portland for Adult Swim.
Prior to his longest-continuous-ever-since-grad-school employment with Laika, Enderle split his time between design for live theater and opera and art direction for stop-motion animated commercials. Recent freelance projects include the world premiere of “Timmy Failure – Mistakes were Made” for Oregon Children’s Theatre, “Elixir of Love,” “La Calisto,” “Albert Herring,” “The Rape of Lucretia” and Philip Glass’s “Galileo Galilei” for Portland Opera, “Middletown,” “Beauty Queen of Leenane,” “The Gray Sisters,” “Fabuloso!,” “Nobody Here But Us Chickens” and “A Lesson From Aloes” for Third Rail, “The Comedy of Errors” for the Colorado Shakespeare Festival and “Noises Off” and “Skin of our Teeth” for the American University in Cairo. His animated commercials include clients such as Häagen Dazs, Coca – Cola, Diet Dr Pepper, Samsung, Trident and Hallmark for production houses House Special, Bent Image Lab and Laika House.
In 2001, Curt received a Primetime Emmy® for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation for his art direction of the “Phish Phry” episode of “Gary & Mike,” a Will Vinton studio stop-motion animated TV show and in 2018 was honored by the Art Directors Guild as part of the team responsible for “Isle of Dogs.”