Helena Smith Dayton (often hyphened as Helena Smith-Dayton)
(1883â€"1960) was an American film maker, painter and sculptor working
in New York City who used fledgling stop motion and clay animation
techniques in the 1910s and 1920s, one of the earliest animators (and
the first American woman) to experiment with clay animation. Her "clay
cartoons" were humorous in nature, and Dayton was featured in the
"Humorist Salons" in New York City. She spent the end of World War I
in Paris managing an YMCA canteen for soldiers. She was a published
author, ranging in genre from journalism to plays to a guide to New
York City.Dayton began sculpting around 1914 while living in Greenwich
Village in New York City. She described how she began to sculpt while
she worked as a writer: "I was sitting at my typewriter, when my
fingers began to itch for something to mould." She bought art clay and
began to sculpt it. "From then on, I tried to fashion people as I saw
them, the humorous always being uppermost in my thoughts." Her
"grotesque" figurines graced magazine covers and accompanied her
humorous short stories in magazines such as Puck and Cartoons
Magazine. A humorist, she specialized in creating clay models of
prominent citizens. She described her work as "gigglesome bits of
statuary." She copyrighted some of her creations and they were
marketed as "Caricatypes". The figurines, averaging 7 1/2 inches in
height, cost 75 cent each. Girls dressed as Dayton's caricatypes would
appear in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1916 with lines written by
Dayton.She began experimenting with "clay cartoons" in 1916. The
February 1917 issue ofPopular Science Monthly included an article
about the motion-picture novelty of "animated sculpture".
Illustrations included photographs of Dayton with her clay figures, a
picture from the animated sculpture play Battle of the Suds, a part of
a film strip showing circa ten frames of three dancing chorus girls
and another of a man and a snake. The journalist found the effect
"startingly (sic) realistic and highly amusing" and believed that "the
rather jerky action serves only to enhance the amusing result". Later
in the year, Dayton admitted: “The difficult thing at first was to
determine just how much to move an arm or a head, to avoid an
appearance of jerkiness. I used to make the changes too great, but am
learning to overcome that now.†Dayton created 16 poses for her
sculpted figures for each foot of film, with up to 30 figurines moving
in a scene. Dayton managed to animate about 100 feet of film per day
and planned to release one film per month.
(1883â€"1960) was an American film maker, painter and sculptor working
in New York City who used fledgling stop motion and clay animation
techniques in the 1910s and 1920s, one of the earliest animators (and
the first American woman) to experiment with clay animation. Her "clay
cartoons" were humorous in nature, and Dayton was featured in the
"Humorist Salons" in New York City. She spent the end of World War I
in Paris managing an YMCA canteen for soldiers. She was a published
author, ranging in genre from journalism to plays to a guide to New
York City.Dayton began sculpting around 1914 while living in Greenwich
Village in New York City. She described how she began to sculpt while
she worked as a writer: "I was sitting at my typewriter, when my
fingers began to itch for something to mould." She bought art clay and
began to sculpt it. "From then on, I tried to fashion people as I saw
them, the humorous always being uppermost in my thoughts." Her
"grotesque" figurines graced magazine covers and accompanied her
humorous short stories in magazines such as Puck and Cartoons
Magazine. A humorist, she specialized in creating clay models of
prominent citizens. She described her work as "gigglesome bits of
statuary." She copyrighted some of her creations and they were
marketed as "Caricatypes". The figurines, averaging 7 1/2 inches in
height, cost 75 cent each. Girls dressed as Dayton's caricatypes would
appear in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1916 with lines written by
Dayton.She began experimenting with "clay cartoons" in 1916. The
February 1917 issue ofPopular Science Monthly included an article
about the motion-picture novelty of "animated sculpture".
Illustrations included photographs of Dayton with her clay figures, a
picture from the animated sculpture play Battle of the Suds, a part of
a film strip showing circa ten frames of three dancing chorus girls
and another of a man and a snake. The journalist found the effect
"startingly (sic) realistic and highly amusing" and believed that "the
rather jerky action serves only to enhance the amusing result". Later
in the year, Dayton admitted: “The difficult thing at first was to
determine just how much to move an arm or a head, to avoid an
appearance of jerkiness. I used to make the changes too great, but am
learning to overcome that now.†Dayton created 16 poses for her
sculpted figures for each foot of film, with up to 30 figurines moving
in a scene. Dayton managed to animate about 100 feet of film per day
and planned to release one film per month.
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