Cardboard Reality Farm & Studio is owned and operated by bekky O’Neil & Keith Del Principe.  They met while volunteering with Bread & Puppet Theatre in Vermont, in 2008, where they were inspired by the work of the collective and vision of Artistic Director Peter Schumann.  For the past twelve years bekky & Keith have been creating and engineering puppets for stage and screen.Together they shared the dream of starting an art farm and living in greater harmony with nature.

In 2016 after graduating together from the Film Animation Program at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema at Concordia University in Montréal, bekky & Keith moved away from city life to bekky’s family’s farm in Northumberland County, Ontario.  The two now enjoy animating in their brick & mortar studio in Historic Downtown Cobourg, Ontario & from their small studio in a converted shed on the farm, tending to the ever expanding gardens, and working to use digital media to make information and ideas about regenerative agriculture more accessible.  They share their space with four cats, Dylan, Coraline, Buddy & Wikipedia, a one eyed giant rabbit named Tybalt, 23 Indian Runner Ducks, and two Alaskan Malamutes named Kodak and Maple.

	bekky O'Neil is a multidisciplinary artist, animator, writer & director based in Northumberland County, Ontario. She is a graduate of Concordia University and holds a BFA in Playwrighting and  a second BFA in Film Animation from the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. bekky has recently completed her MFA thesis in Animated Documentary & Sustainable Agriculture in the Interdisciplinary Masters in Art, Media & Design at OCAD University in Toronto. Her film What Does a Garden Know? will be released in the fall.
	bekky's films have played at festivals around the world including the Ottawa International Animation Festival, Monstra Festival of Animated Films in Lisbon, and Animation Block Party in Brooklyn, NY. Her film Last summer, in the garden was featured in the 18th Animation Show of Shows and in LunaFest, touring cinemas worldwide with a curated selection of animated shorts, and shorts by women respectively. Sting of the Cactus, a stop motion animated music video for Toronto artist Ori Dagan, has garnered numerous awards, played at over 25 film festivals, and in 2018 was awarded Best Animated Music Video at the Independent Music Awards.
	Before finding her way to the world of animation, bekky founded Quality Slippers Productions, a small theatre company producing original mixed media puppet performances and cabarets in Toronto and Montreal.  She loves shooting on film, and playing with textiles and plant based inks.  Her work has been funded by the Canada Council for the Arts & the Ontario Arts Council.
	bekky is passionate about ecology, preserving biodiversity, and believes that good art can inspire positive social change.  www.bekky.ca
	Keith Del Principe is an Ontario based ecologist and animator.  As an artist Keith sculpts and builds out of materials from nature, from clay and paper maché, found, repurposed or recycled materials, and trees that he harvests sustainably from the forest.  For six years Keith worked offshore in the field of marine biology as a protected species observer in the Gulf of Mexico & North Atlantic.   To date, he has spent over six hundred days at sea.  He continues his love of science learning by farming and for the past five years has been pursuing pesticide-free organic farming in Ontario.
	A graduate of Plattsburgh State University of New York, Keith holds a BA in Social Theory, Social Movements & Activism. Keith is also a graduate of the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema's BFA Film Animation program in Montréal, Québec.
	When not immersed in the garden or making music videos, Keith spends his time playing drums & guitar, planting forests, felting stop-motion bunnies, felling trees, and cultivating his green thumb. He designs his unconventional creations in 3D software.  In his work, Keith aspires to weave new mythologies. Keith is presently developing a video game about the farm in Unity. He thinks Leonardo Da Vinci is awesome, and believes that art has the capacity to impact positive social change. www.keithdelprincipe.com