Blair of Wonderland

A McAlester native endures as a legendary animator

I’d never heard of Mary Blair until three years ago when one of those clever Google Doodles greeted me one morning. Marking what would have been the McAlester native’s 100th birthday, the Doodle gave Blair a level of immediate ubiquity that only something like Google can provide. Not only was I happy to see that an Oklahoman played an integral role in Disney’s Golden Age of animation, the fact that it was a woman, in that “Mad Men” world, delighted me even more.

The Doodler in question, Mike Dutton, was intimidated with the task. “Her work was and continues to be a major source of inspiration for a large number of artists working in animation, illustration, and fine art... and the Google Doodle team. So there was some pressure to get it right!”

Aside from working on classics such as “Alice in Wonderland,” “Song of the South,” “The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad,” “Cinderella,” and "Peter Pan,” Blair also had a hand in designing the “It’s a Small World” ride at Disneyland, which just so happens to be celebrating its 50th anniversary.

Mary’s early training came by way of a scholarship to the prestigious Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, alma mater to some of the 20th century’s greatest artists including Oklahomans Edward Ruscha, Jerry McMillan, and Joe Goode (profiled previously in this column). Just five years before his death in 1966, Walt Disney and his brother spearheaded a merger of the Chouinard Art Institute and the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music. The result was the California Institute of the Arts, or CalArts as it’s popularly known. It was Disney’s vision that CalArts would become a sort of animators farm. A recent article in Vanity Fair (“The Class That Roared,” March 2014) described a single class of animators from the 70s that have basically ruled the animation world for the past 25 years or more. The output and acclaim is staggering: “The Brave Little Toaster,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin,” “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” “Toy Story,” “Pocahontas,” “Cars,” “A Bug’s Life,” “The Incredibles,” “Corpse Bride,” “Ratatouille,” “Coraline.” Wow.

While impressive, it’s still apparent how much of a man’s world the realm of animation remains to be, more than 70 years after Mary Blair was doing her thing. Heck, Disney’s first animators, legends in the field by all estimation, were actually called the “Nine Old Men.”

If you’re thinking about a summer vacation (and who isn’t?), consider a trip to San Francisco. Aside from countless sights, sounds, and tastes offered up by the Bay Area, there’s also the Walt Disney Family Museum presenting the current exhibition, “MAGIC, COLOR, FLAIR: The World of Mary Blair,” on view now through September 7.

Mary Blair has been dead longer than I’ve been alive, leaving this world via cerebral hemorrhage on July 26, 1978. I’ve never believed in an afterlife that involves Heaven, Hell, or some place in between. But the idea that one can attain some sort of immortality through art? I like the sound of that.

Blair at a Glance

Mary Blair illustrated many slim volumes in the popular Little Golden Books series for children. Her most enduring title is “I Can Fly” (1951), written by Ruth Krauss.

In her early days working with Walt Disney, Blair worked on a continuation to the groundbreaking 1940 film “Fantasia.” Disney’s original vision was to have “Fantasia” be an ongoing project, with new segments added year after year.

Blair worked on some of the earliest examples of live-action films mixed with animation. Her work can be seen in the often-forgotten 1948 feature “So Dear to My Heart” and the hard-to-find and perennially controversial “Song of the South.”