ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT “Blush” short: A tribute to the healing power of love and art 

“Blush” short: A tribute to the healing power of love and art

In “Blush,” our space traveler learns of the power of love. “Blush” writer and director Joe Mateo, with wife, Mary Ann (left), and their daughters Joey Ann (right) and Mina (center).

By Kai Curry

NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY

In art, we expect some pieces of the artist. But we don’t expect the whole artist.

In the inaugural short from Skydance Animation and Apple Original Films, “Blush,” the whole artist is what we get. A first-time directorial effort by Emmy-award winning animator Joe Mateo, “Blush” is a tribute to his wife, Mary Ann, who passed from cancer. It is a tribute to love and the rebirth love brings.

The project was a rebirth of sorts for Mateo, who moved to Skydance after almost 30 years of work for Disney animation. He and Mary Ann had worked at Disney together—Mary Ann in consumer products—and it was she who had actually let him know that Disney had an opening for an animator back in the day. It is still she that motivates him today to try new projects, such as “Blush,” and to put himself out there, personally, in a way that is somewhat rare.

“Being a first-time director, there was a lot of ‘new,’” Mateo admitted to the Weekly. “It was scary. I feel like Mary Ann has been inspiring me all through my career. I’m emotional to think about it. Even now that she’s not here, she’s still inspiring me to push myself…I never dreamt about becoming a director, but I feel like this is a story that’s worth telling and it’s taken me out of my comfort zone, trying all these different things. It’s exciting.”

As a child in Dondo, Manila, Philippines, Mateo loved to watch 80s cartoons, such as “GI Joe” and “Transformers.”

“I remember wanting to be a comic book artist,” he said. But he never thought he would end up at Disney within a year of moving to the United States.

“You don’t even dream about that kind of stuff. That was too much to dream about.” Mateo’s family was supportive of his move into art and animation; and Disney, Mateo thought, was supportive of diversity throughout his career there, where he worked on such films as “Pocahontas,”

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