The Edison Innovation Award is presented each year to a filmmaker who has a distinguished body of work that advances the mission and legacy of the Thomas Edison Film Festival and demonstrates significant recognition, past and present. The filmmaker recognized is also prominent in the community of independent filmmaker/artists and is recognized as a pioneer in new forms and innovations in filmmaking.

The Edison Innovation Award (EIA) is presented each year to a filmmaker who has a distinguished body of work that advances the mission and legacy of the Thomas Edison Film Festival and demonstrates significant recognition, past and present. The filmmaker recognized is also prominent in the community of independent filmmaker/ artists and is recognized as a pioneer in new forms and innovations in filmmaking.

Steven Vander Meer is a Northern California based artist who draws on 3x5 inch index cards to make short animations. His films are whimsical observations about personal experiences, the environment and the workings of the universe.

Eight of Vander Meer’s films have received awards at the Thomas Edison (Black Maria) Film Festival, including his very first film, “Arcata Brain Closet”, in 1988. Other festival screenings include Sundance, Slamdance, Annecy, GLAS, Palm Springs ShortFest, Cinequest, Ann Arbor, Athens and many more. Special screenings include The National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC; the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), NYC; and the DeYoung Museum, San Francisco, CA.

While working on a film called “Boomerang,” Vander Meer received the Victor Thomas Jacoby Award – a grant which enabled him to travel to the Cork Film Festival in Ireland in 2016, where “Boomerang” was awarded Best International Music Video.

“Artists Who Animate,” a 2018 group exhibition at the Morris Graves Museum in Eureka, California, featured five local artists including Vander Meer who made zoetropes and other innovative animation displays, such as a door with a peephole through which viewers could watch a little movie. Throughout his filmmaking career, he has constantly sought out ways to get animation in front of viewers, other than film festivals. Currently he is making “Animated Brain Closets,” they are small cupboards which, when opened, automatically show an animation. They are installed in various places around the local community.

Rotoscope techniques feature prominently in Vander Meer’s 2022 film “Notice of Rejection.” In order to reference video frames directly onto index cards, he built a custom rotoscope table and did all of the live action video “acting” himself.

From 1992 to 2020 Vander Meer owned and operated Meer Image Rubber Stamp Company. He designed, manufactured and sold art rubber stamps to the crafting community world-wide. He and his wife Carol would frequently travel to conventions with heavy, product-laden suitcases. Most of his films include the use of some rubber stamps, including the card counter box in the lower right corner of each drawing.

In 2011 Vander Meer purchased the Humboldt Pulpworkers, a grange style building used for union meetings and renovated it into Old Purple Thumb Works (anagram alert!) which houses his art and animation studio as well as an Airbnb. The studio itself is always a work-in-progress art project, both inside and out.

You can see more of Steven’s work at https://stevenvandermeer.com