Beginnings...

Over the past two or three years I have wrestled through post college struggles with career and income, identity and passion, in the worst economic recession this country (the U.S.A.) has experienced since the Great Depression. As I took my first steps into the sometimes hostile professional world of graphic design what I personally found was a field of creatives who hungered for validation via success. Success was defined by fame, and who you knew, who your clients were, how many followers you had on Twitter, how many friends you had on Facebook, how many likes you had on Dribbble, who you had pictures with on Instagram. Those who possessed such qualities had influence. I suppose it’s the cost of living in the digital age. Personally, while others found it intoxicating, I have found it to be suffocating.

I have been an artist since I could first hold a crayon, and most likely have been a creative since before I had the faculties to express my creativity. I have always known I was a bit different from the other kids growing up. The world always seemed to be so much more rich and colorful to me. I felt that world around me as a kid. It’s probably for that reason I latched on so early to the output of two creatives who saw the world in vastly different ways from most everyone else, ways that resonated with me, that touched my creative sensibilities. Those two men were Jim Henson and Walt Disney.

What I have come to understand about myself in the past 3 years or so was something that I’ve always understood about myself, but never made the connection professionally- I am functioning my best when I am doing what I love and creating things- touching my creative intellect and expressing myself through it, and as a result, delighting others. I recently expressed to a friend of mine that I love delighting people. I love seeing delight on people’s faces from something I made or did for them, that delighting people is very deeply part of my psyche. I like to think that Walt enjoyed what he did for the same reasons. He once said:

“Why do we have to grow up? I know more adults who have the children’s approach to life. They’re people who don’t give a hang what the Joneses do. You see them at Disneyland every time you go there. They are not afraid to be delighted with simple pleasures, and they have a degree of contentment with what life has brought - sometimes it isn’t much, either.”

This statement resonates deeply with me. It is probably the reason why Disneyland is my favorite place on earth to visit. Don’t get me wrong- there are many other places that are more exotic, more grand, more beautiful, and maybe even more interesting than Disneyland. But for me, Disneyland addresses so many ideals that are important to me personally- like joy, and family, childhood, and dreams, wonder, creativity, ingenuity, self-expression, the possibility of the impossible! Something Walt once said that has been a banner of sorts for me since I first read it as a teenager is “Think. Believe. Dream. Dare.”   These four seemingly innocuous words have grown in personal meaning for me over the years, and carry more weight lately.

It is those four words that have inspired this blog, it’s name, and the content and personal projects which I will be posting on it. Imagineering is a phrase, popularized in the 1940’s, Walt used to describe the blending of imagination and engineering, and adopted to describe the skill set embodied by the employees of Walt Disney Imagineering, known as Imagineers. I first saw the term Backyard Imagineer on the blog Imagineering Disney to categorize creatives who were doing their own self-motivated and self-initiated projects relating to the engineering of imagination. As I venture into this new world of Imagineering through my own personal projects I invite you along for the ride with me! I hope you’ll find delight in my musings… thank you for taking the time to do so!