Animation Producer & Advocate Marge Dean Discusses Her New Art Exhibition Illuminating the Value of Domestic Labor

This Friday, November 7, the Automata gallery in L.A.’s Chinatown neighborhood will open the doors on The Sweepers, a new conceptual art exhibition of the work of acclaimed animation leader and multi-media artist Marge Dean. Each piece is build around the same concept: What would a world where housework is valued — and the women doing it recognized as creative visionaries — look like?

The Sweepers is presented as a group show of the housewives of the fictional Floor Field Cleaning art movement (1940-1975), a subset of the school of Abstract Housework. Its defining characteristic was the expansive, unbroken clarity of stained or soaked linoleum, in which dirt was divorced from its context and cleanliness itself became the subject. Six artists are represented with a portrait, a sample floor from their portfolio, a short biography and inspiring quote. Displayed are also samples of the tools of their trade. An animated interview with one housewife, Laurie Poons, plays through the exhibit and functions as a continuous explanation of the context of the show (watch it below).

Ahead of the show’s debut, Animation Magazine caught up with Dean — who is well known in television animation circles as an Emmy-winning producer/executive, as Head of Studio for Skybound Entertainment (Invincible) and as founder/President of the nonprofit advocacy group WIA (Women in Animation) — to discuss this deeply personal return to her conceptual art roots.

Animation Magazine: Congrats on this wonderful new exhibit, Marge. Can you tell us a little bit about how this venture began?

Marge Dean: And after years of talking about WIA, and encouraging women artists to stop putting their creative vision on the back burner, I realized that I was the poster child for Women in Animation. I studied art, aspired to make my own films but in order to support my family, I took on the role of facilitating and realizing other people’s stories. I have a good career in animation working on great projects with amazing artists. This gallery show is a circling back to where I started.

How do you make the connection between housework and art and animation?

The basic premise of the show is the question, “What if housework had the same value in the world that art does?” What would that mean for women and their status in the world? How would our perspective on work and maintenance have to change in order to elevate the value of housework to the level of fine arts? We would have to value maintenance as much as we value innovation. And then sustainability would be the foundation of everything that we did.

In my work, I simply take conversations about fine arts and translate them into conversations about housework. I have created an altered universe where housework is celebrated, studied and debated in the same manner as art. It gets ridiculous at times; hopefully makes you laugh and forces your brain to think about it all differently.

Animation fits in more stylistically. Even back in art school I was rotoscoping. I was fascinated by the realistic feel of the image but loved the graphic nature of it. There’s a contradiction there that interesting. On this project I started with rotoscoping documentaries but then added “rotoscoping” of still photos which is what led to the paintings.

Who are some of your biggest artistic influences?

I studied art at UC San Diego Visual Arts Department in the ’70s. It was a hot bed of conceptual and performance artists as well as experimental film and video makers. I worked with Eleanor & David Antin, Martha Rosler and Allan Sekula, Fred Lonidier & Phel Steinmetz, Louis Hock and Stan Lawder; Manny Farber and Jean Pierre Gorin. I was deeply influenced by Yvonne Rainer, Josef Beuys and Mierle Laderman Ukeles.

How long have you been working on this venture?

I made the decision to learn Photoshop and Premiere (thank you University of YouTube) in April of 2020. It was the COVID lock down. I had time on my hands and a lot of anxiety to quell.

How did your years of work in the animation business impact the creation of the exhibition?

I have worked with some of the smartest and most talented artists over the last 30 years. I learned so much from them about what works and doesn’t work in visual story telling; what’s makes something funny or suspenseful or engaging and what doesn’t. Sitting in many editorial and model review sessions, I saw when a color choice was wrong and when it was perfect. I learned to hear when sound design harmonized to the exact right point.

Additionally, it is a huge endeavor to put this all together. I have 12 different characters that I’ve created, each with six different elements that I had to track. I was able to get an army of friends to help me out along the way. If I didn’t have systems and an operational understanding of how to make things; I would have drowned a long time ago.

What is your take on the animation business today as we get ready to say goodbye to a very challenging year in L.A. and the U.S.?

It’s been rough. And to be honest, I don’t think it’s going to get easier any time soon. This is not the cycles of animation that we’ve experienced in the past. There has been a fundamental change to how we consume entertainment and content. The good news is that study after study shows the upcoming generations prefer animation. But they are watching it in a different way. The audience is still there and getting larger and larger; we just have to figure out how we can earn a living making content for them.

What do you love best about being at the helm of Skybound and producing Invincible? Why do you think the show has been such a huge hit worldwide?

I am so fortunate to be at Skybound for a variety of reasons. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect considering the state of the industry and I was given the opportunity to build an animation studio with a beloved and brilliant IP. The foundation of the company is that the creative and artists are core to everything we do. I love the challenge of trying to figure out how to create a supportive and enriching environment for artists and still deliver the project on-time and on-budget. We have the resources and support we need from both Skybound and [Prime Video] to do that.

Invincible is a huge hit because the original comic is a brilliant piece of work. Also, Robert Kirkman, creator of the comic, has his hands on the show start to finish. We’ve amassed a team with great leadership including Simon Racioppa and Helen Leigh on story, Dan Duncan & Shaun O’Neil directing, Dou Hong as Art Director and Marshell Becton as producer. And of course, the level of our cast is off the chart.

My favorite stat about Invincible is the high number of people who are committed to the show but do not normally watch animation. I think that tells you how good the story and acting is. The characters are complex and engaging, dealing with human conflict and emotions on par with any good live action drama.

And finally, the animation; the choreography of our fight scenes, is like no other. So visceral and brutal. Generally, I am not a fan of violence in media but there is something beautiful about it in our show. It’s like a visually stunning dance.

How do you find the time on so many different projects, lead WIA, create art on the side and tend to your plants as well?

I’m a really good producer. I believe in making time; not finding it. We all have priorities and choose where we want and have to put our focus. The biggest change in my life is that my kids grew up. Being a single mom through most of their childhood and working in production, I had to learn to use every minute. If the kids went down for a nap; I knew I had anywhere from 15-30 minutes to get things done. I just never gave up that way of looking at time. Once the kids went off to their adult lives, I had so much time on my hands.

I am also a proud workaholic. I love, love, love doing and making stuff. I get huge gratification from setting a goal and then achieving it. Freud said people need only two things: love and meaningful work. If you find something that you are passionate about, there’s nothing better.

Why do you think it’s important for people in the animation business to also work on personal artistic ventures on the side?

I think it is critical for all people to see and cultivate creativity in their lives. Creativity is coming up with an elegant response to a situation. It could be in design or color or words or sound. As a producer, I always saw my medium to be time X money X human resources. Every day, I arrange those things in a way to facilitate great entertainment. Every endeavor involves creativity on some level. One just has to recognize what the medium is. That’s what my show is partly about. Even in tasks that are done over and over again, there are creative choices being made. All work is important, and all work can be seen as creative if we just change the way we look at it.

Marge Dean’s The Sweepers opens Friday, November 7 at Automata (504 Chung King Court, Los Angeles | automatala.org).

Dean will also be a featured panelist during the 2025 World Animation Summit (Nov. 17-19). Visit animationmagazine.net/summit to learn more.