Colorado singer-songwriter and multimedia artist Riley Max has turned the struggles of her first year at Harvard University into “Year One,” a folk-pop song accompanied by a music video that blends live-action footage with stop-motion animation.

Max, 21, released the “Year One” music video Aug. 28, bringing together two sides of her work as a musician and visual artist. An animated segment featured in the video is also on display at Harvard’s Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts as part of the exhibition “No Slop, No Second Screen: Animation, the hard-won image.”

The song draws from Max’s experience during her first year at Harvard, when she was dealing with vocal cord problems, other mental and physical health challenges and the adjustment to living independently.

“I wrote ‘Year One’ when I was having a really tough time during my first year at Harvard. I was coming back from having some issues with my vocal chords, and I was dealing with a lot of other mental and physical health issues, as well as being completely and totally responsible for my life for the first time ever. It was a lot,” Max said.

Max said the uncertainty she experienced at the time extended to her music and whether she would begin feeling like herself again.

“I wasn’t sure when – or if – I was ever going to start feeling like myself again, musically or otherwise. So this song means a lot to me, because every time I listen to it I remember how far I’ve come,” she said.

The video expands on the song through stop-motion animation, an art form Max has incorporated into her studies at Harvard. She initially completed the animated segment for a class before deciding to develop it into a music video.

“The animation was completed in a class that I took last year, and I knew immediately once I finished it that I had to turn it into a full music video, because I was really happy with the way it turned out,” Max said.

The project also helped shape the direction of her upcoming undergraduate thesis.

“It was so rewarding to be able to express my feelings through such a uniquely creative medium, and it really made me fall in love with stop motion animation even more – to the point that I’m going to pursue a stop-motion thesis this year! It’s always a joy to be able to combine my many artistic loves,” she said.

Max is a senior at Harvard, where she studies art, film and visual studies. She also serves as music director of the Harvard-Radcliffe Veritones and has participated in musical theater productions.

Her work extends beyond music. Max has worked as a cover artist and comic creator for the Harvard Independent, and she plans to create a fully animated short film for her undergraduate thesis.

“Year One” follows her July single “Pockets” and comes as Max prepares to release her second solo album this fall. In an interview published in August, Max said the album is planned for October.

Her debut album, “ROYGBIV,” was released in 2023. The nine-track album was recorded when Max was 18.

Max has said storytelling remains a common thread as she experiments with different musical styles. Her work draws from interests spanning music, film, theater, illustration and animation.

With “Year One,” those interests converge around an experience from the beginning of her college years, turning the song’s autobiographical story into both a musical and visual project.