Skip to content Skip to footer
Menu

Meet Lyndon J Barrois, Sr

0CommentsShare Post
Stories & Insights

Meet Lyndon J Barrois, Sr

March 14, 2024
0Comments
Share This Article
Share Post
Newsletter

Sed ut perspiciatis unde.

Subscribe

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Lyndon J Barrois, Sr. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Lyndon J, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?
Lyndon J, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?
ART is an incredibly large umbrella, with more specialized disciplines under it than you can imagine. And this is where most of us misinterpret or misunderstand the pursuit. We interact with art on a daily basis without realizing it. From advertising and architecture, to sitting in a chair, having a meal, reading a story or seeing a movie, just about every object or entity we connect with or consume, started as an idea or design that was transferred to a page, surface or canvas, then realized as a physical thing. This is work entirely done or influenced by artists.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I wear many hats within the art world that all started from a hobby I created as a kid in New Orleans, so I populate a few spaces under the umbrella. Most of my professional career has been as a visual effects (vfx) character animation director for feature films and television, having served this role on The Matrix and Happy Feet franchises to name a few. My character performance range has run the gamut from cute & cuddly, to monstrous & mayhem in over twenty feature films, all leading to membership in the VFX Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. So it’s been an exciting ride. I’ve also spent many years in the world of VR (virtual reality), mixed reality, and virtual production, and am embracing the latest rapidly advancing A.I. revolution.

But getting back to that childhood hobby. I started creating miniature people from chewing gum wrappers. As a ten year old, I sculpted drivers to put into Hot Wheels cars, and I never stopped making them. From drivers to boxers, to entire sports teams, to graduating from Xavier University of Louisiana in fine arts, and then learning to make my athletes come to life and play through stop motion animation as an MFA student at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), it’s been a nonstop journey. All from trash – chewing gum wrappers, hence my current studio and monicker, @ItsAWrapper and itsawrapper.com. I’m the only artist on the planet using this material and medium to this degree. They’re portraits of real people in historical or current events, or Sportraits, in the case of athletes. And all of my stop motion films are shot entirely on iPhones. They are or have been in museums, galleries, film festivals and personal collections. I do commissions, work for hire, or simply create works on my own. It’s all a blast!

I also have a foot in the graphic arts world as a published event poster designer, and still do some on occasion. My wife, the TV writer Janine Sherman Barrois, and I are avid art collectors and serve on the boards of a few art museums and institutions like The National Portrait Gallery and The Hammer, and are members of the Black Trustees Alliance. All of this has come with a serious passion and focus in art training, fundamentals and practice that can’t be bypassed or shortcut, even in this advanced technological environment. An understanding and utility of basic aesthetic principles still and will always apply.

Have you ever had to pivot?
Like many professions, an artistic one is about constant adaptation. At the onset of my animation career I was slammed with a pivotal transformation. At CalArts, I spent three years studying and practicing the art of stop motion animation, and post graduation was going to work on my first job – a feature film employing this technique. The movie was Mars Attacks. But in the new computer graphic frenzy of Jurassic Park and Toy Story, the stop motion was scrapped for CGI and I lost my first job before I even started it. Therefore I had to pivot and adapt to the reality of learning this whole new technology in order to remain competitive and maintain a viable career. That’s not to say that I couldn’t do it as a stop motion animator, because I know many artists who have done it very successfully. But in the face of a luring $55K college debt in 1995, my best choice was to hop on the CG train. Fortunately I succeeded. It also made me a more productive animator as I was now capable of performing in both stop motion and digital mediums at a high level. And I got the opportunity to direct a stop motion TV series – The PJs – which launched my digital directing career as well. And now with A.I. we’re all pivoting again, in every field it touches across the artistic and industrial spectrum.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Regardless of our situations, resilience and perseverance are key aspects to this journey. We all face obstacles but as people of color and women, we are inherently sensitive to how we’re perceived in our careers. In spite of my accomplishments, there were times where my abilities have been openly challenged, questioned, or tested. I’ve been rejected from jobs I’ve pursued, some not even granted interviews, and others offered demotions instead of promotions or lateral moves. And others where I’ve had the top position but had it systematically undermined. In these cases, experience has taught you what’s really going on, even when there’s no official account or proof of it. However, you still persevere because I believe none of those occurrences should have any negative effect on you as a person or professional, but only serve to make you stronger as both!

Contact Info:

Suggest a Story: CanvasRebel is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
0LikesShare Post
Leave a comment

Leave a comment

Conversations with Entrepreneurs, Artists & Creatives

© 2025 CanvasRebel. All Rights Reserved.