New trailer here in MAXI GIANT SIZE

I have this 34 x 11.5″ gauche painting by Harper but I can’t figure out what it was for. Harper worked as a set designer for Warner Brothers in the 40’s then worked on several Disney projects including Art Directing 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (which won an Oscar for the design), and later, after Disney, the famous Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and The Fantastic Voyage. If you have any clue what film had a scene like this set in North Africa or someplace with moorish ruins occupied by British? soldiers – let me know. I can’t find anything.

UPDATE: As the commenter below noted it MIGHT be from the 1936 Charge of the Light Brigade – watching the trailer suggests the same costumes and the same settings. But Harper would have been about 25 at the time, and would they have rendered color illustrations for a B/W film?

Ever since the first time I saw theater I wanted to design theater. Then I saw Disneyland and knew THAT was what I wanted to design. In Jr High we took one of those tests that tells you jobs you’d be good at if you weren’t sure. I was sure and checked the box for “other” and wrote in artist and Imagineer. How exactly this boy in Fargo, North Dakota would accomplish this, I wasn’t sure. But those cartoons said dreams can come true.

Less then 10 years later I was working at my first job, and it was the only job I ever wanted. I was in the model shop at Imagineering restoring an antique miniature carousel to be the centerpiece of a new resort in Florida. (I would later go on to do concept and show design.) Overseeing this project was “Disney Legend” John Hench, a 90-some year old fond of wearing ascots – ascots! I knew very well who he was – because I was practically a Disney historian – and when he’d stop by my cubicle I’d try to get him talking about the old days. This wasn’t hard as I was working with a woman he liked to entertain.

The stories were all news to her, as she, like a surprising (to me) number of Imagineers, knew little about Disney history. I soon realized though, he’d edit himself in the company of women, and it wasn’t until we were alone that I got the good stuff. Like when he began to tell me why he thought the Disney parks had sustained such popularity. It had to do with humans having a subconscious or genetic memory of once having lived in a perfect world, perhaps the garden of Eden, and that’s we’re all trying to get back to. He began to lose me there. “It was free love and all the bananas you could eat,” He said, then elbowed me and added, “but I don’t know what the ladies thought about it.”

I began taking my breaks up in his office. This was amazing to me that I could. He was the most senior designer on staff, one of the few remaining to have worked with the founder of the Disney company – the man who basically invented animated films and theme parks as we know them – yet John was basically ignored by the senior management he shared the floor with. So I’d sit there in the corner eating my bagel while he leaned over his computer working in Photoshop. Photoshop. I didn’t even know Photoshop then. It was new to him too, “You poke this button and all these little ants start marching around.” And, as he was working on designing the exterior paint scheme for the first Disney Cruise ship, “It’s all in there, the whole ship, but you can only see part of it at a time, you just keep sliding it back and fourth and it’s floating out there in space.” Some days I’d eat my bagel silently as he worked, never knowing I was there.

I asked him about Mary Blair, famous for her design of the Small World attraction. He recalled going to a CalArts fundraiser event and seeing her with a water glass full of vodka, and moments later, with an empty glass and her propped against a wall heading towards the floor.

I asked him about Salvador Dali, whom he worked with on an animated short (“Destino“) in the 40’s. They became good friends and John actually helped him with several paintings. (There’s even a play inspired by their friendship, “Lobster Alice.”) John told me they’d wanted to make a “fanana.” An idea they had for a sculpture of a fan that turned into a peeled banana through a combination of 2 rotating platforms and a pepper’s ghost effect. I’ve often thought I should build it.

Some new Disney attractions struck John differently – and literally. As the high-speed GM Test Track was about to open at EPCOT John had taken a test ride. I was shocked someone his age would go on a thrill ride like that, but I was still getting to know him. “How was it?”

In his slow gravely voice, “After I got off, I told them they should put warning signs on that!…”

“Well I’m sure they are.”

“…Warning signs that say ‘Men wearing boxer shorts shouldn’t ride.’ They take you over these different surfaces, and this one was so bumpy, and those seats are so hard, my testicles were going WHAM WHAM WHAM!” Slapping his hand on the table to demonstrate.

Maybe the pain kept balls on his mind because some time after that he showed me designs for these huge fiberglass characters being sculpted for the new All Star Resorts. A 40′ tall dalmatian from 101 Dalmatians was to be placed sitting on the ground. John insisted the dog be perched on a cushion as he explained “some kid is going to get a couple balls or balloons up under there like testicles and take a picture.”

He did also teach me ways to use color i would have never considered – and I considered myself a good colorist. He explained how when the colonial styled building that houses the epic “American Adventure” show at EPCOT  kept growing in height to accommodate the ever growing theater behind it, he had to “keep your eyes on the ground” so you didn’t notice how huge the building was. His solution, using the fact that the eye is drawn to the point of highest contrast, was to use four different whites, each slightly more gray with each higher level, keeping the most brilliant white as the trim on the ground level. Looking at the building you’d never notice the white on the tower isn’t the same as the columns on the bottom.

There were other tricks too. If you think the facade for Disneyland’s Small World is all white, look close next time you’re there and you’ll see the sides of the shapes are painted light blue on the underside and light pink on the top – this warms and cools the reflected light bouncing off those shapes giving a subtle “life” to the facade a truly white facade would lack.

When I was born John was already 66. I can’t imagine being 65 and thinking there’s people not yet born that I’m going to be working with. The worst part of getting laid off from Imagineering was knowing he’d be gone before I’d ever get hired back. And sure enough a few years later, he died. But by chance I happened to stop at an estate sale in my neighborhood only to find it was John’s house. Almost everything was gone as it was late in the day but I did get a terrific 70’s colored metal artist’s cabinet from his studio for $40 that i still use. I also grabbed a roll of architectural drawings laying nearby and paid $10 – when i got home an unrolled it among other drawings was a nearly finished sketch for one of his Mickey portraits.

A few years before, when a friend decided to leave the Disney company she went to John to tell him the news, and expected him to be upset with her decision. Instead, “he took a deep breath and slowly wiped his hands down his face and said, ‘Do you know all the things I wanted to do?’ After elaborating and listing all the things not accomplished, he told her to go go go and not regret it.

There was definitely the sense that he’d stayed with the company (65 years!) out of respect to Walt and his vision – and, i think, also, to the guests that had come to expect quality from the Disney name.

And I think about all the Disney geeks and fanboys that make it their life goal to work for Imagineering – like I had – and here you had the most legendary of all Imagineers wishing he could’ve pursued his own ideas the whole time. Lesson learned. Point Taken. Etc. Etc.

Now I hadn’t planned on buying ANYTHING when i was in Disney World – i assumed there wasn’t a single item of modern merchandise i’d care to own – but then i saw these EPCOT tees and i went OMG OMG! and bought them all and tried to convince others around me to do the same because these celebrate when the future was the 80’s and EPCOT was still an all-caps acronym about an aspirational global Community Of Tomorrow. Granted the one on black looks like the designer spent about 3 minutes on it resulting in a wrongness that the Silverlake hipsters will think i’m wearing ironically, but no, i really am happy to be working my collection of faux-vintage EPCOT-wear at the home, office, and gym.  (If you’re a medium and like the black one let me know because I bought 2 because i didn’t know which size would fit after washing – so i’ll send u the medium if u want.)

So at EPCOT now there’s these Kim Possible missions you can go on where u get a special cell phone that gives you the clues u need to solve various capers.  I was tickled to get a mission set in the Norway pavilion – being I’m Norwegian and all – but oh, it got WAY better…

Ah was i gagging! Fur thefts! “Back to school” viking fashion! A drag queen shape-shifter named Camille Leon!?! Then I have to find a stolen painting she plans to turn into a handbag. Art thieves? Viking fashion? Could it get any better? YES. Then I’m supposed to infiltrate the runway show by posing as a model (every Norwegian’s true calling no?)…

Then I have to find a certain person and say “The viking look is all the rage this season.” And then the give you the designers card with the code you need to get into the show.

I won’t tell u how it ends but I can tell you it involved viking ghosts attacking runway models!?!! I mean really, it was like someone took everything i could have wanted and wrapped it into a little adventure for me. Art world, Fashion world, models, secret agent action, a photoshoot, viking ghosts!!!! And I didn’t mention theres booze at EPCOT. So there i am getting boozy and running around EPCOT by myself, taking orders from cartoons on a cell phone – a vacation activity i highly recommend!

Evil witch holds hero prince hostage is the fairytale image, but gay revenge fantasy is what I read.

Maleficent was the ugly thin gay kid in school who now finds his fierceness (power) in dressing in outrageous, yet well designed outfits, while wearing excessive makeup and accessories to distract from his not-hot features (check out the shnozz and chin). In other words, feeling he possesses no celebrated masculine power traits he opts to gain attention by going full tranny – which of course just gets him/her labeled an even bigger freak who’s now not just ignored but shunned. (Remember the entire Sleeping Beauty debacle happens because Maleficent wasn’t invited to a baby shower.)

The tall skinny gay kid/Maleficent hates the prince because he’s the hot jock kid with rich parents who never had to work a day in his life and will get a sweet job from family connections by doing nothing. IT’S SO UNFAIR!  He lives in a bubble having no idea how the rest suffer. To make it worse, the tranny Maleficent also sorta wants to have sex with the prince but hates that she wants to – aghh, internal conflict, what to do? Tie him up – but not do anything to him! This way he’s forced to aknowledge you for once in you life and at least make eye contact, forcing him to see everything isn’t going as well for you because people like him disregard people like you.

Maleficent knows its a temporary victory and she will lose and he will win – like always. But before it’s over he’ll face the full force of her don’t-u-ignore-me bitch rage (when she becomes the dragon – FULL DRAMA QUEEN MODE!) After which, he will hopefully, she wishes, live the rest of his happily-ever-after days implanted with a tiny shrapnel of fear knowing there are people out there like Maleficent, who were not born pretty, rich, and connected, and they’ve got his number should he ever cross them again.

and it looks super cute.

his site http://www.wildsiders.com

Here’s the guest rooms. Again i’m using other people’s pics and don’t know when i’ll  see it myself. That’s what sucks about these projects – you work on them for years then they open without you. FYI my commercial work site is here showing other projects.

You can find small versions of the over-the-bed prints on ebay.

These are shots other people took of the art in the public areas. (I’m purposely not mentioning the name of the resort to avoid search engine queries – this blog doesn’t share the same “family” audience as the resort.) It opened last week and I created 30-some pieces for it’s walls and most of the art in the guest rooms. It’s located between the neat A-frame resort with monorail going through it, and that famous park with the big castle. Sadly it’s only available for members of the company’s time-share program so the rest of us will have to settle for pictures. To see my other commercial work go here. (But i can barely show anything as almost EVERYTHING I do is part of a confidentiality agreement or something.)

All pieces were created digitally by me sitting here working in Photoshop with a Wacom tablet. There’s two pieces on each of the 14 floors (each floor gets the same art in two colorways.)

While working on this i also made an iPhone wallpaper out of rejected concept art for this project.

It opens this week. I made lots of “wall decor” for this project. I’d say more but this particular company doesn’t yet seem comfortable with their designers discussing the work they’ve done outside of their approved channels. I haven’t seen the resort in person so I can only rely on what photos I find on Flickr. I’ll post more after it opens (when hopefully people will have uploaded their pics.)