Acclaimed animator, storyteller, and filmmaker Rebecca Sugar (BFA 2009 Animation) made a huge cultural mark with their critically acclaimed Cartoon Network show, Steven Universe.

Heralded for its pioneering, positive LGBTQIA+ representation on television, Universe ended its six-year run in 2019, not long before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which left Sugar feeling reflective and questioning their artistic identity and path forward. A subsequent three-year break from social media and the Internet turned into a fertile period of artistic reconnection.

Sugar wrote and sang many of the songs featured on Steven Universe show, but it took time to overcome the self-doubt they felt about exposing a more personal, vulnerable side. As the animator-turned-musician sings on “Sweet Time,” the lead-off song on their dreamy, folky album, Spiral Bound, “Everybody’s headed somewhere, and they want to get there faster, but . . . I’m taking my sweet time.”

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The acclaimed animator, whose original songs often featured in her work, talks about their recent album and latest professional evolution.