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Muir, left, and "Primeval Whirl" - Dinorama, Disney Animal Kingdom Theme Park (1997) Cinnbar Project)
Sana Rose, Contributor
DISNEY WORLD is a place where creativity, fantasy and entertainment converge, offering theme and water parks, resorts, movies and even a cruise line as part of its range of activities and attractions.
Among the resort destinations in the Disney entertainment empire are Disneyland in Southern California and two cities across the world Paris and Tokyo and Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Indeed it is a world all its own that has captured the hearts and minds of children and adults alike with its various rides, scenes and displays that have been rendered, packaged and presented in the form of adventurous and pleasurable vacations.
DISNEY'S ALLURE
While guests become entranced by Disney's allure, many talented and skilled workers toil away behind and in front of the scenes to keep the wheels of imagination and inventiveness continually turning. Among the thousands of employees at Walt Disney World in Florida is Jamaican artist Doreen Muir who, for the last three years, has been a part of an eight-member team of Show Finishers at the Disney/MGM Scenic Studio. Her highly specialised job includes the painting of murals, props and set pieces for the restaurants, rides, hotels and displays that adorn the theme parks and cruise line.
Muir's road to Walt Disney World began in 1980 when she visited the Epcot theme park for the first time and was attracted to the art she saw there. She shares that when "I saw all the art stuff that they did the paintings, the murals I was fascinated. I said to myself, 'this is what I would like to do' because that's a different way of approaching painting." At the time, she was attending Petersfield Secondary School in Westmoreland and painting and drawing were already "profound interests" which she took seriously. So it was no surprise when she enrolled at the Jamaica School of Art (now Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts) where she received the inaugural Cecil Boswell Facey Art Scholarship and graduated with an honours diploma in painting.
HER FIRST SOLO EXHIBITION
In 1988, a year after graduation, Muir left for Tottenham, England, where she staged her first solo exhibition. This opportunity afforded her easy access to works of art in galleries and museums that she had only been able to see in books up to that point. At the same time, she was invited by the Black Arts Association to exhibit at the Changing Room Gallery and was also able to participate in the Caribbean Carnival of the Arts in Somerset, which gave her access to a wider audience. The following year, after her stint in England, Muir landed an art teaching position at Jamaica College where she remained until 1992. While there, she balanced teaching with her own work and was able to present two more solo exhibitions in 1990 and 1992 in Jamaica. By now, her thematic interest had shifted somewhat from local genre scenes to still life, especially objects with reflective surfaces rendered realistically. This level of representation would prove to be an asset for her future jobs in Florida.
Muir wanted to push her career as an artist and in 1993 she went to New York and was able to paint consistently. In 1995, she settled in Orlando, Florida, and exhibited at art festivals and fairs, including the Rotary Orlando Street Painting Festival at which she received Honourable Mention in 1996, and the Best of Show award for originality in 1998. She had come full circle to the Walt Disney World location and soon began to enquire about getting a job there to fulfil her youthful dream. But her Disney work experience was to officially begin in 2000 after her introduction to the field through Cinnabar, a company that specialises in scenic fabrications. She, however, got a taste of Disney during her work period from 1997 to 1999, through a few of Cinnabar's contractual projects such as Disney's Animal Kingdom.
Now in her third year at the Disney/MGM Scenic Studio, Muir's favourite assignments to date include the children's rollercoaster, 'Primeval Whirl' at Dinorama in the Animal Kingdom theme park (a Cinnabar project); the '100 years of Magic' floats for the Magic Kingdom theme park and the sets for the Rosie O'Donnell show, the first project she worked on, which earned her full-time employment status. Taking their cue from the Walt Disney Imagineers who conceptualise the various thematic undertakings, Muir along with the rest of her team have collaborated on other notable projects including the 'Great Movie Ride', 'Tower of Terror' ride cars, 'Pearl Harbour' scene, 'Beauty and the Beast' and this year's interactive 3-D display, 'Mickey's Philharmagic' at Fantasyland Concert Hall in MGM.
She has been able to pull on her painting skills, adding to them new techniques which allow for versatility in moving from realistic to more graphic representations of images, and also in employing faux finishes that mimic the appearance and texture of stone, wood, metal patinas etc. She is very thankful for her Edna Manley College foundation and sings praises of her painting tutor, Cecil Cooper and Director of Studies, Mrs. Hope Wheeler
especially.
Doreen Muir enjoys her job, which is often challenging.
DIFFERENT PAINTING TECHNIQUES
"Working at the MGM scenic shop requires that you have to be able to use different painting techniques because the various projects require different approaches. You learn new things every day, so you have to be open-minded and focused so that you can take on challenges at any minute. You must be able to work fast, paint very well and interpret ideas whether they have been presented to you on paper or described to you verbally. I work with some extremely talented artists who are nice people and we get along really well. The fact that we share ideas enables us to ensure that the work is done in a professional manner," she relates.
Persistence has brought Muir to the current juncture of her artistic pursuits. She maintains that, "If you have the right motivation, then you can do what you have to do. If artists in Jamaica wish to go abroad and pursue a painting career, they need to investigate and see where they have an outlet for their talent. Don't just go and try for a short time and then give up because there are avenues out there that you can make use of."
For the artist, her personal art practice has been enriched by the MGM studio's creatively stimulating environment. She has unearthed numerous explorative paths in painting, which she looks forward to developing in the future to the extent of making a living solely from her own work.
As she plans her first solo exhibition in the United States for next year, she reflects on her Disney experience thus far: "It's a fun job. I paint almost every day and for me, to paint every day and be paid for it and be able to live from it, that's really good. I'm doing something that I really do have a passion for."
