Mary Blair

Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of Mary Blair's birth.

Who's Mary Blair?

Not only was she Walt Disney's favorite artist, she is the most important and influential woman to have ever worked for Disney. She's also an inspiring story of how not everyone finds their true self in their early twenties.

In 1941, she was 29, married and college graduate who had studied at a prestigious art institute but her art was at a stalemate. It was adequate but not amazing. Then, the U.S. Government decided Disney should take some of his best employees to central and south America on a goodwill tour and make a movie out of it. Lee Blair, Mary's husband, was an animator and had worked on story development for Fantasia. He was invited to go but Mary was not. None of the spouses except for Lillian and one or two others were allowed to go. Lee and Mary insisted that Mary needed to go in a professional capacity. Eventually, Walt agreed.

The trip completely changed Mary's life. She found her style. People noticed an immediate change in her artwork. Disney appointed her Art Supervisor on both films to result from the trip, Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros. For the next thirty years, Mary was responsible for everything from the art direction of Alice in Wonderland to how the characters looked in Peter Pan to the design of everything in It's a Small World. Even her death didn't stop her influence. The segments of "Rhapsody in Blue" and "Carnival of the Animals" are both based on her artwork from the 1940s and color choices in Tangled were said to be inspired by Mary Blair.

In short, she was awesome and I'm happy that Google recognized that yesterday. For more about Mary Blair, I highly recommend Walt & El Grupo.

I also wrote up an article on her with different stuff mentioned:
http://www.yourhighwayinthesky.com/2011/10/mary-blair-disneys-favorite-artist/

Plus, another awesome link...this includes her later years when she started doing nudes:
http://magicofmaryblair.com/mary-gallery.htm

Avengers Trailer

So, what did everyone think of the Avengers trailer?

http://www.yourhighwayinthesky.com/2011/10/avengers-trailer-breaks-itunes-record-sequel-planned/

Abarat Gallery

You can see a full gallery of Abarat paintings and drawings, including those unpublished here:
http://www.clivebarker.info/youngabarat.html

Top Ten Pop Culture Influences from Childhood

The following are in chronological order and contains nothing after I turned eleven...that should be another post if I choose.

Time Bandits
When I was 3 or 4, this was apparently my favorite movie ever. My brothers and I would watch it on a machine at the arcade over and over. I watched it again in college and was blown away by the weirdness and darkness for a kids' movie. It probably has the most messed up ending ever but then it clicked for me. This was the beginning of my liking weird stuff like Haunted Mansion, Beetlejuice, Goosebumps, etc.

Star Wars
I loved aliens especially cute ones. Plus, to this day, I like to pretend to use the Force on elevators and automatic doors.

Jim Henson
Walt Disney wasn't alive when I was but I had Jim Henson. Here was an adult who loved being around puppets and "childish" things and no one said anything bad about him. I wanted to have a Fraggle hole and a nursery like in Muppet Babies. Plus, there was Sesame Street that had all these parodies of films Ibecame curious about like Gone with the Wind and Casablanca.

Punky Brewster
Punky Brewster was cool. She wore whatever she wanted and I became the same way although I also had Punky Brewster shoes.

PeeWee's Playhouse
"where anything can happen" It's similar to Time Bandits in weirdness but in a happier way. It also had several female role models and an appreciation of everything from marionettes to puppets to stop-motion animation to old black and white cartoons, always with an emphasis on pretending and creativity. It's an appreciation that I've maintained to this day.

Saturday Night Live
With two much older brothers and one television, I started watching this early. To be honest, I'd credit it with my lifelong interest of politics and history. Unlike David Letterman, SNL provided context clues about what was going on with costumes and set. It was more fun than watching the news and then, I would understand stuff when I was watching Murphy Brown or Designing Women. I loved those shows about strong, successful women like I wanted to be someday.

James Bond
One of my brothers loved the series so much that at one point I could name the theme song off a few notes. Whenever I catch a James Bond film, I can't help but smile a little bit about the childhood memories. I've also admitted to myself that I'll be a James Bond fan for life.

Oliver & Company
Later, I would complain about the twisting of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but at least with Oliver Twist, they made it into a completely different film with animals and New York instead of humans in London. Between redoing a literary classic with animals and the fact that animation techniques were reused, this is the precursor to The Lion King. It even has some of the first CGI used in animation. Along with my mom's influence, I've had a taste for the classics ever since...oh, and it references my most favorite Shakespeare play ever but I wouldn't find that out until high school.

Wrestling
None of my family watched soaps. However, every Saturday morning, there was my brother, the James Bond fan, insisting on watching wrestling rather than Bugs Bunny. I realize now that these were my first soaps. Of course, there was wrestling but that's not what kept people tuned in each week. You see, the Honky Tonk Man kept going after Macho Man's wife, Elizabeth. Then, there were the wrestlers who would be mortal enemies one week and tag team partners the next. It was a soap opera, just of a more manly sort. Still, trying to keep track of the twists and turns probably better prepared me for Joss Whedon, Chris Carter and JJ Abrams.

Jurassic Park
I wanted to be a paleontologist. Then, I found out all the work involved and decided I'd settle for working in films which is how I ended up with a degree in Communication.