Time for a new chapter

As I walked along the Glendale river walk I counted birds. 40 + black necked stilts, 2  cinnamon teal, 6  blue winged teal, a flock wigeons, a great blue heron, a great egret and a lot of garbage. Tires, shopping carts, plastic bags stretched thin looking like bad Halloween decorations. I had and hour to kill before my next meeting so bird watching with the new binoculars my wife gifted me sounded like a good idea. 

The glittering shallow water of the man made river somehow supports life. I wish it could be a real river with silt and mud, not one with a concrete bottom. You could drive a truck though it. I know, because I saw one today plow through 3 to 6 inches of water.  The walk along the river took me to my first real job, DreamWorks Animation. It’s a beautiful campus full of fantastic people. I was there for about ten years. 

I rounded the corner and left the concrete bottomed river and started walking on Flower Street.  For what seems like miles there are Disney buildings on both sides of the street. So many buildings that Disney once tried to gate the whole street off.  I’m glad they didn’t.

Each building has the signature san serif font marking its address. There’s the Imagineering Building and the Marketing buildings. But I was looking for a particular building that after over ten years I had yet to visit; the ARL. It was once called the morgue. No dead bodies but full of the incredible artistic heritage of over 100 years of animation filmmaking.

I did bring a few pieces to the ARL to add to the heritage and for safe keeping. To help our incredible design team I made a rough sculpture of the giant ancestral whale shark.  The sculpture is oil based and without proper preservation it would lose its shape.

I didn’t want to impose and even though I’d just directed Moana 2, I elected to tag along a pre-scheduled tour. The people getting the tour had only been at  Disney for a few weeks.  They were all interns. Bright eyed and excited for a beginning chapter in their careers. I was there as part of an ending chapter in my career.  For the past 10 plus years Disney has been my creative home. A place full of mentors and  friends who helped me to eventually become a director.

Walking through the ARL I got to see original paintings, story sketches and hand drawn animation. The building houses so  much artistic legacy and history. I loved seeing the maquettes, sculptures of the characters, all the way from Fantasia’s dance of the hours to Moana. While these new recruits were greeting these characters and dreaming of adding to the great heritage of art I was saying goodbye.

After very careful consideration I had decided that I needed a bold new chapter in my career, one that would take me away from Disney. It hasn’t been an easy choice, working and directing at Disney was absolute dream fulfillment. After the impressive tour I said my goodbye to our guide and wished the interns luck in their careers. Then I strapped on my birdwatching binoculars, you know the ones my wife gave me, and started walking back down the street, to the river walk and to my car. As I walked away I felt content to have added my own stamp and even artwork to the great heritage of art at the ARL and was excited about my new undefined chapter ahead of me.