Inside the Chuck Jones Red Dot Auction | Pat Pattison with Craig Kausen & Featured Artists

We're here at the Red Dot Auction and I'm with Craig. Craig, give me your title and everything. Let's see. Prince. How's that? Prince. Because my mother must be the queen. See, Linda is the queen. That's right. You're the prince. Maybe I'm the prince. Grandson of Chuck Jones. How's that? Chuck Jones. Incredible legacy. And you are here raising funds for the Chuck Jones Center of Creativity. So now, name some of the artists that have donated. Well, I mean, we've got, as I said, Ben Olson has a work of art in here. Jeff DeGrandis, who does Rat Fink. Rat Fink. That's right. And 105 works of art that have been donated here just for this. And every character you can imagine, every type of art. And there's somebody called Chuck Jones who has a few pieces in here. So original Chuck Jones drawings are in the auction as well. So I'm here with Beau Hufford, artist, and this is your piece. What's it called? It is called A Little Bit of a Tweet Tooth. A Little Bit of a Tweet Tooth. I love the punch. Yeah. That's a Chuck Jones thing. Yeah. I love it. So you were a fan, I'm not sure. Huge fan growing up. Yeah. All of the Chuck Jones stuff, including the Tom and Jerry and everything in between. And we're such animation nerds. I actually know what he's talking about when he says the Tom and Jerry. So there's many, many faces. Many faces, absolutely. And it's so inspiring, especially as a little kid, not really understanding anything other than this is so cool on TV. But as I grew, really realizing, recognizing the style so much and being so inspired by that. I was the same way. I finally started noticing, directed by Chuck Jones, are the ones I like the most. Yeah. So what's your background in terms of your art? My background has always been, I've always been a cartoonist of sorts. Even as a little kid, I loved drawing cartoons. I do a little bit of design and photography. But somewhere in there, I decided I really love the idea of painting. Painting these characters in my way. Wow. And through that, it ended up becoming wood carving. So this is actually a wood carving. I can tell. So I got in there and carved the wood. And something about the textural feeling of getting, I want people to come up and touch it and feel it. Because typically with artwork, Don't touch it. See? I knew it. I was being set up. Typically with artwork, they love don't touch it. It's so special. I love that. But I love the idea of textural wood and kind of getting in there and getting your fingers on it. So yeah. Is there a website or something people can go to to see your work? Absolutely. My website is my full name, which is Beau Hufford. That's B-E-A-U, Hufford. And you can go there to see all my personal work as well as Disney work that I'm in. So yeah. Thank you, Beau. Absolutely. Thank you. Appreciate it. So I'm so excited. I'm with Trevor Carlton here at the Red Dot Auction. Trevor, this is your piece. What's it called? This is called Winner, Winner, Tweety's Not For Dinner. Are you a Chuck Jones fan? I love. Yes. Did you grow up like I did with Chuck Jones? Every day. Cartoons. Oh yeah. Those are the best. And you're going to do a live art demonstration. That's true. Yeah, I do a live painting to music and dance and try to get the crowd all crazy and stuff. That's great. Now, your background as an artist, do you? So yeah, I've been working with Disney, Disney Fine Art, for the last 25 years. Wow. And so we've done stuff with Craig before in the past. And then I've just been loving these events just to come have fun and meet all the other great artists and meet some new clients and friends. That's so great. Yeah, it's just a really great event. Is there a place people can purchase your work? Do you have a website or something? Yeah, trevorkarltonart.com. trevorkarltonart.com. Great. And also at disneyfineart.com. OK. And then, yeah, you can also get some things with Craig as well. Yeah, go to thered.auction.org. And Trevor, thanks so much. Thank you so much. OK. So I'm excited. I've got artist Ben Olson here. And Road Duck! We almost got hit. We almost got hit, yeah. Arrows flying everywhere. So Ben, tell me about your piece here at the Red Dot Auction. So first of all, I love this event and what the Chuck Jones Center for Creativity does. And this year's theme was laughter. And the best laugh sequence to me in any film is from Robin Hood Daffy. And it's this sequence, which also happens to be Linda Jones' favorite film and her favorite laugh sequence. Wow. So when we were going through this, I do some live edge wood pieces and stuff like that. And I wanted it a little bit different. But I wanted this scene specifically, where they're just barreled over. Because you can't help. Like, Daffy knows he's being a fool at some point. And Porky is just laughing because he's just watching it happen. I remember. He's falling. Oh, he's falling over, right. Yes. And like, after he's completely made a fool of himself. So what I wanted to do this year, too, because I painted on wood, was I'm like, well, let's get a tree in there. And let's stick some arrows in it. So we went a little three-dimensional with the piece. You went on a piece of actual wood. This is a piece of cedar. And then sanded it down. Conditioned the wood. I don't think, actually, cedar grew in Burbank. No, no, no. I've been to. Well, this is in Burbank. Remember. This is Termite Terrace. Sure, Termite Terrace. Termite Terrace. And clearly, they did not get to this wood. They did not get to this wood. Termite Terrace was the place on the Warner Brothers lot that all the animators made their not very great salary. No. And that was a different system. It was. And they literally had termites in the building. And termites. And your art enterprises, what all are you up to? So I'm a Warner Brothers fine artist. So I'm licensed through Linda Jones Enterprises to do Looney Tunes and Hanna-Barbera. And I'm also a Disney licensed fine artist. So I get to play in that world as well. That's incredible. Any website people come to buy your stuff? So for Warner Brothers and Disney, you can do it through the Chuck Jones Galleries. And then Disney is through Disney Publishing, which is collector's editions. That's great. Well, thank you so much. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. You can't have a favorite Chuck Jones cartoon. But this is my favorite. This is my favorite. One Froggy Evening. Love it. And Scott Ryder, you did this piece. Explain it to me. So this consists of 2,754 individual. But who's counting? Glass lenses. But who's counting? Except me multiple times. Oh my gosh. And it's mostly 3D printed. There's a wood frame inside. But most of this is 3D printed. Excuse me. There are 13 layers, color layers, and light diffusion layers between this and the light. I've been actually working on the idea since 2024. And the whole thing took a couple months to 3D print and put together and test different aspects of it. Talk about the cartoon. Tell our viewers that don't know this cartoon. And only know Michigan J. Frog from the WB, which was what, 30 years after he was created? Right. Tell them about the cartoon. So the cartoon starts, and it's a construction site, and one of the construction workers finds a box at the site, opens the box, there's a frog in there, and the frog sings and dances, but only for him. So he's thinking, oh, I'm going to be rich, I have a singing, dancing frog. No, not the case. Whenever he tries to show it to someone, yeah, it's this frog. This one just sits there and doesn't do a thing. Right, exactly. And pretty much ruins his life. Exactly. So what I was thinking, so there's different viewing angles for this piece. If you're standing in front of it, you see the frog, but if you look at the frog from a different point of view, then these other frogs will appear. It's the multiple personalities of Michigan. Exactly. And then one of my favorite parts is the end. Tell them about the end of the cartoon. Oh, the end. So he realizes he's not going anywhere with it. He's sitting on a bench, depressed. The police come, take him away. The frog gets put back in the construction site, and then sometime in the future, the cycle starts again. A guy is taking down a building with a laser beam, and he finds the frog, and you realize, oh, this has been going on forever. The Center for Creativity, do you do more with it? Yes, so I've worked for Linda Jones for about, I think, 13 years now. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, kind of all aspects. I work for the Center. I work for the gallery. That's great. So an amazing thing, I'm with Annette Lilly. And Annette, one of the things I'm noticing about all the various homages to Chuck, all the substrate, the different medium, and yours is pottery. Yes. Ceramics. Yes, absolutely. Tell me about that. I am a huge fan of American Southwestern art because I have a background for my family of Native American heritage and Spanish. So I wanted to bring something a little different today, American Southwestern. And this actually tells a story. Yes. So obviously, we have Wile E. Coyote. He's always messing around with dynamite, trying to get that roadrunner. That's amazing. Yes, absolutely. So obviously, things happen. Boom. I love it. Things go boom. I love it. Yes. That is such a unique piece. Absolutely. And we've seen some that are wood. Oh, yes. We've seen the 3D lenticular. And Ben Olson's one of my favorites. I like the arrows. Yeah, that's pretty good. So perfect. And what else do you do for art? Is there a place somebody can go see your art? A website or something? I have Instagram, AnnetteLilyArt. Instagram, check me out. AnnetteLilyArt, great. Yes, absolutely. So Annette, thank you so much. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Of course, yeah. So I'm so excited. I have the Mount Rushmore of Chuck Jones Admirer right here. You just look at this. This is the profile that you will remember. And each of you, if you'd just give me your name, and then tell me what you love about Chuck Jones. Go ahead. So my name is Ben Olson. What I love about Chuck Jones is his sense of humor. And he was a very inquisitive guy. And it wasn't just animation. It was everything. He went to JPL. He went and visited with doctors. He was always inquisitive about what was going on with people, what drove them to create the things that they did, regardless of the field. And you can see that in what he did with the films. Because he didn't make it for the kids. Him and Mike Maltese, they wrote to make themselves laugh. And that's why we laugh as adults. That's so great. Hi, I'm Annette Lily, and I love Chuck Jones because I love his ability to be creative. And also, I love his cartoons. Anything to do with Halloween, Witch Hazel, Gossamer. Of course. Love them. They're my favorite. The hairpins. Oh, absolutely. It's amazing. Those little touches. Oh, yes. And it's got to be perfect, but unperfect, right? So it's amazing. So I love those cartoons. My name is Beau Hufford. Hi, Beau. Good to see you again. Yeah, good to see you. The reason I love Chuck Jones is really there's a human sensitivity, a psychology behind all of his work. You can really feel his thought about the way it looks and the way it feels. The actual story there that you're like, I've felt that way before, and I just always loved that about his son. And he was rementioned, I think I was talking to you, what a Charlie Chaplin fan he was. Absolutely. And certainly in Chaplin's films, there's the same kind of empathy and pathos I guess you could say. Absolutely. Last but not least, Trevor. Yes, Trevor Carlton. Hello. The things that I love about Chuck Jones are the expressions that he created. I mean, the way that the mouth would curl up, it would just keep going all the way upstairs. Oh, the Grinch? Yeah, exactly. I mean, I don't know what it is about the way he drew eyes and just the expressions really just remind me of my childhood. You can always tell his character. Oh, yeah. Even though Bugs Bunny was Bugs Bunny, you could tell it was his Bugs Bunny. Yeah. And I used to watch after school, the cartoons, and I would have crackers and cheese watching Coyote and Road Runner, and that was what was up. Yeah, that was what was up. That's because those were the advertisers and they were brainwashers. They were brainwashers. It worked. Well, guys, let's lift our glasses to Chuck Jones. To Chuck Jones. And the Center for Creativity.