The Artist Explains: Thia Sexton - 'Awoken'

Cellist and singer/songwriter Thia Sexton speaks to us about her fascinating animated video for her single, 'AWOKEN'.
In 'AWOKEN', Thia Sexton's smooth vocal embraces its listener in a friendly warm hug, offering an anchor amidst the ebb and flow of rich, sophisticated, arrangements that reach out and soothe the soul. 'AWOKEN' is taken from Thia's 'Everybody But You 'soundtrack that accompanies her funny book of "mostly true" stories of the same title.

Thia Sexton Explains
How did you come up with the idea to create an animated video for 'Awoken'?
I happened to see the inspired artistry of Matt Yarrington and Sarah Winters. There’s a hand-made, almost sculpted, living, breathing multi-media quality to their work that’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen in animation. When Matt heard the song 'Awoken', he wanted to create a world around it.

How does the story in the animation compliment the song?
In the beginning of the video, half of the broken heart is planted in the snow and starts to grow green tendrils. It’s a beautiful visual to show the different ways a heart can transform from grief. The other half of the heart is placed in something that transforms in even more crazy-beautiful ways—expanding and bursting onto new landscapes. There are so many places the video takes us.

 Any behind the scenes stories?
Matt Yarrington has a friend who had kept a rock for 10 years. One day he handed the rock to Matt and told him to use it for something creative. That rock became the face of the He/She person in the video. When I first saw the video, I kept looking at the complex beauty of that face, and couldn’t figure out how they made it.

Tell us about the ideas/ themes/ imagery used?
From the first moment of the video, the imagery is luminous and dazzling: a tree house against a purple sky, the incongruity of a disco ball next to the tree house, texture and movement of yarn as a flowing river, black geometric lines on a white heart. The Creature feels like a “Found-Art” creation with its metal levers and spinning reels. Then suddenly an art deco stylish-ness, and submerging into an underwater world with stairs and hot air-balloons—all taking us somewhere even more beautiful.

What is the message you hope people take from watching the video?
The lyrics to 'Awoken' are “Maybe a heart that’s been broken grows bigger.” Matt immediately asked, “Do you want the video to be about finding extraordinary love in a new 2-person relationship—or to be about breaking open in a way that enlarges your love for the entire world?” That’s the message I hope people take from watching the video. That we all experience really hard stuff in life, but hopefully we can break and transform and grow bigger and hold more love than before . . . for everyone.

Interview Feature by Karla Harris

'Everybody But You' the soundtrack is available on iTunes now and you can grab a copy of Thia Sexton's book  of the same title via Amazon USA.