Carlos Ferguson, an artist from Iowa who has recently been traveling extensively to spread his creative message, came by Southeastern on Thursday, Sept. 30. The artist shared with students about his background and his latest projects in an hour-long lecture, including his latest large scale project, “Tiny Circus.”

Ferguson began studying art in college, with a desire to sculpt, and ended up taking a painting class as a prerequisite. After this however, he moved mostly to painting, switching to photos when he said the message of his image was lost on people focusing on his brushstrokes. After this, he began to experiment with ways to get his viewers and followers more involved in his art, such as “image boxes,” or boxes with scenes inside of them, seen only through a lens. He moved on next to closed dioramas seen only on a screen, where the image seen was controlled by two joysticks moving a small robotic car through the many scenes inside. Ferguson, however, became unsatisfied even with this amount of involvement, and set out with an idea for a much more collaborative art project, one which involved stop-motion animation and a large amount of people of all ages.

“Tiny Circus” began when Ferguson rounded together around 10 to 15 friends and set up an animation studio in his parents’ old barn. Since then, the group bought a trailer and renovated it for their purposes, which include the many videos put out over the past three years, and Ferguson has since used it as his base of operations.

Ferguson described the creative process involved in “Tiny Circus” as picking a history (or picking a topic for their videos, which they usually do by drawing ideas from a hat), brainstorming with many people and creating a storyboard, “making stuff,” shooting the animation and editing.

Some names of Ferguson and his teams’ whimsical videos include “The History of Falling,” “The History of Kissing” and “The History of Ghosts.”

“I think it’s awesome how the group is bringing art to younger ages and showing them what they can do,” said Chris Habenicht, a senior visual art major. Habenicht’s fellow senior visual arts major Rebecca Brown commented on Ferguson’s involvement of children in both the process of making the films, and their involvement onscreen.

“I really enjoyed the collaboration with children and the childlike quality that came from it,” said Brown.

Ferguson himself will be at Southeastern for four to five days collaborating with students in order to make a new video, “The History of Adaptation.”

“This was the most enjoyable art lecture that I’ve seen in my four years here, and I look forward to tonight’s performance,” said John Williams, a visual arts senior, who is planning to become involved in the collaboration.

All around, students highly enjoyed the outlook of Ferguson on the creative process, his ideas on art itself, as well as commended his skills and those of his team.

To learn more about “Tiny Circus,” visit www.tinycircus.org, or take a look at their videos on youtube.com.