Education Leaders Program / Shelly Wattenbarger
Shelly Wattenbarger
School affiliations
Websites and Publications
"Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere."
- Carl Sagan
Shelly Wattenbarger makes films, performs, sculpts and teaches under the alias Trixy Sweetvittles. As a full-time faculty member at the University of Southern California’s John C. Hench Division of Animation and Digital Arts, she teaches undergraduate animation production courses and runs a directed studies class focusing on bringing animation education to the community.
Her multi-media sculptures combining ceramics and animation were recently featured in the New Town: Convergences exhibit at the Pasadena Armory Center for the Arts. Her animated films “La Mujer Lagartija,” “Mermaids and Pickles,” and “Dream Lover Fondue” were screened at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, the Holland Animation Festival, and the SXSW film festival, among others. Her one-woman puppet show “Pudinella Parsnip” was showcased in the 1998 Jim Henson International Puppetry Festival.
Shelly’s professional experience includes serving as animation director for Nickelodeon’s “Blue’s Clues.”She has over ten years experience teaching animation to K-12 students and working with non-profit youth arts organizations. From 2003-2007, she chaired the animation department for the California State Summer School for the Arts. She was a site instructor for the Community Arts Partnership Sony Pictures Media Arts Program from 2004-2006 and the CAP/Inner-City Arts High School animation program in 2006. Shelly holds a BFA in Painting and Ceramics from the University of Texas at Austin and a MFA in Experimental Animation from the California Institute of the Arts.
