Making Magic Beautiful Again.

Two months ago, I was hired on as an artist for Walt Disney World’s Figure Finish department. It was like stepping into a dream. I had to pinch myself several times in the first few days to realize that this opportunity I had for artistic growth was truly a reality. I took a selfie in the early hours of the morning to send to my brand new boyfriend, happy as could be after my first night of work. I spent one whole week and day with my head in the clouds before we were furloughed on account of the Covid-19 pandemic.

On a chilly evening in February, I parked my car in a nearly empty corner of the Magic Kingdom cast member parking lot at 9:15pm. I was very early for my 10pm shift and full of first night jitters. My new steel toed boots felt strangely heavy, but their weight was buoyed by my excitement. I dialed the phone number of the workshop and the voice of a soon-to-be coworker greeted me happily and told me to wait for her outside the gate. I couldn’t help but stare with wonder as we crossed the warehouses to the shop where I was to begin work. After having been employed at the Disney parks in Florida for over a decade already, I was sure my capacity for wonder was quelled. I was wrong. What a whirlwind I was in for that first week.

Those first few nights, my new lead and I walked, coffees in hand, through the scenes of over half the rides in the Magic Kingdom park. Pirates grinned slyly at us as we navigated the Carribean. A sea witch laughed menacingly as we stepped carefully under the sea. Elephants in the jungle raised their trunks playfully from the water as we cruised along. Forty four Presidents all nodded quietly as a tall gentleman with a stovepipe hat addressed a theater empty, save for my lead and I.

Back in the workshop, surrounded by a very talented team of artists, I learned to mix the different kinds of paint needed for the various materials used to fabricate props and animatronic figures. Soon I was assigned a vegetable basket to paint for the Winnie the Pooh queue line. By the end of my first week, it was nearly complete.

Out in the park, I touched up rubbed off bits of paint on the forehead and eyelids of a sheepishly smiling animatronic bear in the Country Bear Jamboree. An impala in the Jungle Cruise was in need of fresh paint as well.

Never had I imagined I’d be rigging up lights in the middle of the jungle, balancing a palette of paints I wasn’t entirely sure I knew how to mix, and carefully applying said paint to an alert but very stiff impala, all while serenaded by a cacophony of monkeys and birds for a couple of hours. It was exhausting and thrilling.

My body even adjusted in short order to the night shift schedule over which I’d had a little trepidation. There was something wonderful after all about watching the sun rise over Cinderella Castle in the early hours of the morning before heading home to sleep.

I was over the moon that first night of work. And I know I will be again soon. I cannot wait to dust off my steel toed boots, don a safety vest again, pick up my paints and brushes, and rejoin the team that makes beautiful once more the Magic that has made millions smile. Here’s hoping you’ll smile with us.

“May Walt Disney World bring Joy and Inspiration and New Knowledge to all who come to this happy place … a Magic Kingdom where the young at heart of all ages can laugh and play and learn – together.”

– Roy O. Disney, October 25, 1971 –