wacky tacky: Mary Blair

Showing posts with label Mary Blair. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Book Review: The Little House

I have shared this cartoon before in a post about the art of Mary Blair. Seriously, it is one of my most favorite cartoons of all time - the art direction of Mary Blair and the vocal talents of Sterling Holloway - how could it be beat?

"The Little House" (1952)

Today, while perusing the book stalls of a thrift store I found it! In the very back corner, on the very bottom shelf, of the very last stack of books I was looking through, I found a rather time-worn copy of The Little House. Now I am no bibliophile; I rarely look through the book section while thrifting as I am more intent on finding clothes and housewares. I like books, but usually my favorites are purely picture-based. Well, it goes without saying then that I love children's books - especially heavily-illustrated examples from the first part of the 20th Century that inspire my favorite cartoons.

Yes, in this dust jacket-less copy, there are some ink marks, plenty of dog ears, and a sagging binding, but I say, "Let he that is without a sagging binding cast the first stone." I just couldn't leave behind this sweet 1946 printing of the The Little House. The author, Virginia Lee Bruce, quite well known for another children's classic, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, won The Caldecott Medal for The Little House in 1942 for "The most distinguished American picture book for children." That's right, Ms. Lee Burton illustrated the book as well. In 1952, Walt Disney released the cartoon of the same name.

At some point in it's nearly 70 year life, this book belonged to Tommy. Here are a few of my favorite pages from The Little House.

"Now the Little House only saw the sun at noon, and didn't see the moon or
stars at all because the lights of the city were too bright. She didn't like living
in the city. At night she used to dream of the country and the field of daisies
and the apple trees dancing in the moonlight.

The Little House was very sad and lonely. Her paint was cracked and dirty...
Her windows were broken and her shutters hung crookedly. She looked
shabby...though she was just as good a house as ever underneath."

Concept art for "The Little House" - Mary Blair
Notice the product placement - even in the 50's!

"Once again she was lived in and taken care of."

"Never again would she be curious about the city...
Never again would she want to live there...
The stars twinkled above her...
A new moon was coming up...
It was Spring..
and all was quiet and peaceful in the country."

I tend to feel like the Little House; the city is interesting, but I think I would be happiest in the country, surrounded by daisy fields and apple trees. The Little House definitely inspired the styling that I look for in a home; I love symmetry and a house with a "face." I've said it before, but my favorite houses are those that look like a child's drawing of a house or at least an illustration from a children's book.

I think my rescuing The Little House directly echoes the storyline. The Little House "didn't like living in the [thrift store]. At night she used to dream of [Mr. Tiny's house]...Her [spine was] broken and her [cover] hung crookedly. She looked shabby...though she was just as good a [book] as ever underneath." Now, "once again she was [read] and taken care of." Although, Mr. Tiny wouldn't normally end a sentence with a preposition.

Cheers!

Mr. Tiny

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Trick-or-Treat for Halloween

I love Halloween. I love it even more as an adult than I did as a child. It has less to do with candy and costumes than the simple fact that in comparison to holidays like Christmas and Easter, Halloween requires very little from me. I used to think Thanksgiving fell into the category of easy holidays simply because no gifts were exchanged, but after all of the grocery shopping, preparation, cooking, cleaning, and last minute trips to the grocery store for forgotten items, Halloween feels like a vacation. For me, Halloween just isn't Halloween without some of my favorite, standard, spooky programming.

I hate, repeat hate, scary movies. I am of the opinion that the world in which we live is about a scary as I can handle and I don't need demented clowns forcing me to amputate parts of my own body keeping me awake at night. Nor do I need an angry, burn victim with knife-hands terrorizing me in my sleep. One year I went to a friend's Halloween party and in a continuous loop, the television displayed "best of" clips from some of the most famous horror franchises. I am haunted to this day. As much as I detest horror/slasher movies, I love mildly-spooky, Halloween programming with 5-to-10-year-olds as the target audience. Gimme a good cartoon and I am happy. No surprises here - I refuse to let a Halloween pass without watching Disney's Ichabod and Mr. Toad. Who doesn't love the Washington Irving tale of the New England school teacher chased through the woods by a headless horseman? Who doesn't get a kick out of the heavily-Mary Blair influenced animation? Who doesn't want the opportunity to let the mellow "boo-boo-boo-ing" of Bing Crosby's mellifluous voice ingrain itself into the soundtrack of another holiday beyond Christmas? I ask you, who? To get you in the Halloween spirit, here are some pieces of Mary Blair's (it is never too soon to feature Mary Blair again) concept art for "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and the finished cartoon in three parts.

Concept art for Icahbod Crane - Mary Blair

The "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" portion of Ichabod & Mr. Toad (1949)

And just one more for good measure...

Cheers!

Mr. Tiny

Friday, October 21, 2011

wacky tacky Icons: Mary Blair

Thanks Google Home Page for stealing my thunder!!! I have been planning this post for the last four and a half months - I just got a little sidetracked after I began the first draft on June 7.

Mary Blair
(October 21, 1911 - July 26, 1978)

One of my many intentions with this blog was to highlight some of the artists that inspire me and give credence to the wacky tacky ideal. Mary Blair may be kind of trendy. She may be kind of hip. She may be the Disney nerd's trump card in the Disney history card game (to those folks, I have just two words "Peter Ellenshaw" - look it up). Nevertheless, Mary Blair is truly awesome and deserves as much recognition as the wacky tacky world can grant her. In honor of her 100th birthday, I thought I'd share a few of the images that made me love Mary Blair.

The kids in my family were raised on the classic cartoons as well as the animated and live-action films of the Walt Disney Studios. We were one of the first families to have The Disney Channel when it arrived on cable television because we were the family used in the commercial to promote said channel (I finally transferred the video cassette rough cuts/outtakes to DVD but they are lengthy and probably only amusing to those involved). This deep connection with classic Disneyana is in every way associated with the brilliance of Mary Blair.

I first started to love Mary Blair before I even knew who she was. Her concept art was the template for so many Disney productions including one of my favorite Disney cartoon shorts, "The Little House." Oddly enough, it is the story of a charmed, little house that endures the urbanization of its once bucolic home and the ravages of time to eventually rediscover happiness as the restored, dream cottage of a newly-married couple. Incidentally, the story is narrated by the inimitable Sterling Holloway. Really, Mary Blair and Sterling Holloway, how could you lose?

Concept art for "The Little House" - Mary Blair
Can you find the little house down there amidst the sprawl?

"The Little House" (1952)

Sterling Holloway

I love Mary Blair because she was more than just an artist, she was a trailblazer. The 1940's and 50's saw few women at the Disney Studios working outside of the ink & paint department. Mary Blair and her art were not just an early attempt at equality in the workplace, they were a driving force behind the look of golden-era Disney. While her concepts were invariably softened by animators both in tone and in form/line/color, the "Mary Blair" stamp is unmistakable on all of her work. She was also one of the only women hand-picked by Walt Disney as part of El Grupo, the group of artists/animators who would accompany him on his government-sponsored tour of Latin America that resulted in "Saludos Amigos," "Pedro," "El Gaucho Goofy," "Aquarela do Brasil," "Lake Titicaca," and "The Three Caballeros."

Walt & El Grupo (1941)

"Aquarela do Brasil"

A Blair costume sketch

I love Mary Blair because her art inspired more than my favorite cartoons, it also inspired immersive, interactive experiences namely, It's a Small World.

Concept art for It's a Small World - Mary Blair

Disneyland's "It's a Small World" - Anaheim, CA

I love Mary Blair because she was an unintentional style maven. When one sees photo stills of Blair and the film reel footage of her included in the documentary film Walt & El Grupo, it is clear that her personal style was anything but Main Street, USA. Blair was an artist, a bohemian.

I love Mary Blair because her work had such a specific point of view. Her art was not only distinctive among her contemporaries, but it continues to be so singularly attributable to Blair. Her use of shape and color is inspired. While she was an employee of a company that has a reputation of strict, corporate control and painstaking consistency, her work was representative of a unique vision.