Carlos Stevens

Sometimes the creative spark is hard to ignite when you live by the rigid rules of sport. As a competitive ski racer since age seven, Carlos Stevens had to plunge head first into the wilderness in order to uncover his artistic side.

“At 17, I realized I hadn’t really skied at all,” he says. “I was very good at it, but I hadn’t gone off into the trees or into the mountains, so to speak. I hadn’t had a chance to use this talent to actually express myself. I decided that I wanted to be a freestyle skier, do tricks and have style.”

The quest for creative expression as a freestyle ski punk took Stevens, who is 27, further and further northeast from his hometown of Santa Fe, New Mexico. After a stint working in a repair shop at Sugar Bowl Ski Resort in Lake Tahoe, he moved to Hood River, Oregon and, deterred by repeated injuries, he gave up the sport and enrolled in the Art Institute of Portland.

Stevens started out studying web design, but felt constricted once again, this time by the world of programming. He followed the creative itch into the film department, where he worked with administrators to develop a BFA that incorporated film, design and animation.

“I’ve always been more of an illustrator, a graphic design-type,” he says. Toumai, his thesis film, mixes hand-drawn 2D landscapes, with 3D animation and stop-motion to tell a story loosely based on the mythological Greek character Icarus.

The film, he says, was an opportunity to “explore the natural world”. “I love tactile stuff,” he says. “Whether it’s building sets or building a cabinet for my house or building a little character. I like to combine natural, tactile things.”

Stevens says his artistic curiosity was fostered by his mom, a psychotherapist and artistic nut who’s “done everything” – from painting and drawing to singing and playing the Dulcimer in a folk band. “She’s helped me find my visual artistic side,” he says. “She’s a builder and an incredible craftsman of all kinds.”

After graduation, Stevens interned at Portland animation studios Bent Image Labs and Nervo and joined Superfad as an art director in February 2009. His classical, illustrative style found its way into a spot for Haitian telecoms company Voilà.

The animation in Voilà “Nou Se”, which flows from the movements of the spot’s star, musician Wyclef Jean, is based on hand-drawn interpretations of traditional Haitian folk art and combines filmed footage with digital effects and 3D work.

“Buds” for Goodby, Silverstein & Partners’ Sprint NOW Network campaign, has a more streamlined, graphic style inspired by the app icons and functionality of the telecom brand’s 3G phones.

Lately, Stevens’ style has evolved further into the live-action realm. He is billed as creative director on “Eye Candy”, a series of painterly in-store films for Sony Bravia released in February. In each of the films – directed by Superfad ECD Will Hyde – rapturously textured imagery springs from the dot in the electronics giant’s make.believe tagline.

“I rarely do anything that doesn’t involve some live-action aspect,” he says. “Live action is a different beast – it’s difficult to get funding and equipment for it, so I have to take my experience and combine it with this new world to come up with cool, new interesting stuff.”

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