As Magical as Disney can appear, there is also an underbelly of ugliness. On the operational side of a large company of creatives, the challenges are immeasurable. It has been an eye opening experience for me and has given me a real world perspective of the business of art, customer service and making magic.

The housing for the College Program is provided at a reduced price at Flamingo Crossings. However, as a new cast member I did not get a choice about the type of housing arrangement. It has not been a great experience and I relocated to my parent’s house mid-summer. In summary, it is a complex with nearly 4,000 college students with no rules of engagement, minimal boundaries and no Resident Assistant. As I was moving out of Flamingo Crossings, it became apparent Disney knows the problem exists but has not solved the issues.

Many businesses say the customer is always right and that is the same at Disney. Disney says it is all about guest experience. However, I have experienced personally and witnessed repeatedly the ugliness in the world today. It is unbelievable the number of people who are inpatient with waiting in lines in the summer heat with their loved ones and lash out at the cast members. My family has been on numerous family vacations at the Disney Parks in the busiest of times and would never EVER behaved like what I have witnessed. I really do not think it is the wait times or the heat. Unfortunately, I think it is a microcosm of today’s society.

Just to finish my disappointment about the Disney culture, no one has your back. The guests will be screaming at those of us running an attraction and no supervisor will come to diffuse the situation. The guest will rarely be asked to leave the attraction and almost never asked to leave the Park. Managing people is never easy. Raising the bar to change the culture would be challenging but not impossible and I hope Disney will take the difficult path and change their operations to address these issues.

Safety is paramount in all business operations. With both of my parents working in construction, I have understood it in the sense of trades’ people building buildings and operating heavy machinery. At Disney, I am in a safety critical role. Prior to getting my job assignment, I was required to drug test. I spoke with several others entering the college program who did not have this requirement. Safety has been a key factor in my internship this summer.

In the attractions every day – safety is critical. At the Buzz Lightyear attraction, it requires seven positions and four of these are safety critical. The four safety positions include Load 1: loading guests on the ride; Load 2: fastening the guests into the car. This position is also responsible for everyone on the entire coaster with the main control panel. Unload 2: has the second control panel: Unload 1: is responsible for unloading guests. Together these positions along with the other 3 stations ensure the safety of all guests on the ride. Every attraction has safety critical positions at Disney.

This summer there was tragic death at Icon Park. A young man perished because safety standards were not followed. Two rides at Disney, Flight of Passage (Animal Kingdom) and Soarin’ (EPCOT) are rides that have the same amount of drop that the young man fell and died at Icon Park. Disney shut those rides down for a day and had a mandatory safety stand-down for all cast members that work those attractions.

Every week in every land, there are track talks. During these talks, we review the safety standards and discuss the importance of safety in daily operations. Also during normal work hours, the safety leaders will visit the attractions to observe the safety behaviors of the cast members.

Public art installations also need to consider safety as a key factor. In my weekend in NYC, I visited the Statue of Liberty. I viewed it from Liberty Park. The Statue is extraordinary. Lady Liberty originally constructed in France 1875-1884, moved to the United States in 1885 and reconstructed in 1886. I researched the reconstruction of the Statue and was completed without scaffolding in a very short time frame. Extensive safety standards have been established over many years for workers and the public. Today’s safety standards are an important constraint to consider in design of public installation art.

The finance of installation art has been a topic that has interested me recently. While working at Disney in a very successful brand with merchandise that is identifiable worldwide, it makes me think about the financing of art. Because Disney is interactive installation art, it draws crowds and money.

After a recent trip to NYC, I began thinking about the financing of art installation. At MOMA is saw a room size installation. It was impactful however; it was all words and in my opinion lacked any graphic or interactive depth. I began to wonder if at any time was the cost a constraint for the artist that affected the decision making for the installation art design.

From the early history of Disney parks, there have been many sponsors of the installations. Some of these sponsors included General Electric 1964-1985 at Carousel of Progress or Eastern Airlines 1972-1978 at If You had Wings (original site for what is now Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin).

Today as Disney has grown into a successful recognizable brand, they self-fund the installations based on their media success. Three of the newly constructed or renovated installations include Guardians of the Galaxy (EPCOT), Tron (Tomorrowland – MK) and rebranding of Splash Mountain to Princess and the Frog (Frontierland – Magic Kingdom).

From the operational side of Disney even on their most successfully branded rides, Disney cannot afford to keep it all running. The Stitch ride at Tomorrowland in Magic Kingdom was too expensive to maintain and operate in Disney’s budget so the ride is closed. In the second most popular ride in Animal Kingdom, Everest (rollercoaster) the Yeti costs too much to repair. It originally would swoop toward the coaster but now it just hoovers over the track. The Yeti has been non-functional since before the pandemic.

From my observation, installation art requires a solid funding source and additional budget for on-going costs including maintenance and up keep.

This was it. This was my last week of work before I turned in and began my preparations for the coming fall semester. I wasn’t going to let anything distract me, or take me away from the work that had fueled me all summer. Whoops, my doctors appointment is on Friday in the middle of the day. Well then, I’m sure the good doctor won’t take too long, and I should be back before the work day is out. The doctor took 2 hours to see me. By the time I got back to the office after my appointment, everyone had gone home for the day. I had said goodbye before I left, but I still felt like there was work undone. I still feel as though work is undone. On the Monday before my departure, I was calmly working, and now I must entertain myself for the next two weeks before I can leave Naples and get back to Deland and continue my studies. I have of course, notified my supervisor and my old team of my situation and that they can call on me to do anything they need done, at least until I depart. The split was quiet, and although I did not have a going away party, everyone did give me a very kind good bye when I left for the doctors. I was able to meet our new accountant before I left, however, and she seems like a fine addition to the team. I don’t really have any regrets, [cut by NW]. My team will do just fine without me.

For my second to last week at work, I kicked it off by missing the first two days of the week. Even though I only meant to miss Monday, a flight cancellation knocked me back a day and subsequently increased my waiting workload. Regardless, I returned fresh on Wednesday with zero jet lag, because I only flew from Colorado. I know, my parents visited my brother and then I do the same with my mother the next week. My parents felt that it was important for me to visit my brother before I went back to school, and although I had some fun in Denver, the entire time I felt a nagging reminder of the ever present work pile awaiting me. I sincerely hope I will be able to slow down at some point, as this is getting somewhat tiring. I do find my work fulfilling, but being ever aware of work unfulfilled manages to overshadow this completely. I wish that at some point in the future, that I can forget and remember at will, if so only that my tired mind can rest. I don’t think or even want a life of endless luxury, I just think that I need something to fulfill me, and something to make me money, and if those two are one and the same, I’ll be all the happier. Regardless, I believe I will always need something to occupy my conscious mind, as I have seen what a lack of “food” can do to it. Whether this is through video games, or freelance work, or school work, this cycle of receive, complete, return is essential to maintaining a proper handle on my mind.

This week was very slow in the beginning, and sped up rapidly towards the end. I should have expected this outcome, and I did, so I was well prepared for the large mass of work dropped on me upon my return to the office on Thursday morning. As I said in week nine, I was out for the first three days of the week so I could keep an eye on my dogs. I wasn’t exactly resting while at home though, as I was kept slightly busy by the drip of work through my assigned email. A couple times a day, I got a new assignment, and even though they barely kept me for a half hour each, it was something to work on. When I returned on Thursday after my time off, I was greeted and given a pile of sample tiles to deliver across town. By the way, Naples has a street specifically for stone and construction businesses. Those types of businesses aren’t limited to that area, but its pretty much where every single business named “Stone”, “Florida”, “Works”, or “Design” are located. I have kindly requested that my coworkers who provide me with tasks, to please only give me the address so I cannot be confused as I drive down a busy street looking for Naples Stoneworks, not Florida Designworks. Both of those are real places on the exact same street.

Much more of the same for me this week. I’ve noticed that my general responsibilities have shifted slightly. Although I still take care of much of the accounting input, I’m being consulted less and less on designer choices, which I believe are instead being posed to the new designer. Out of consideration for her, I won’t name her or any of my other coworkers. I genuinely wonder how much longer the downtime will be for me, because its already substantially increased since the new girl has been here. I have heard from my supervisor that we are looking at new accountants soon, so I will have much more downtime after whoever gets hired arrives. Hooray. I am looking forward to a somewhat substantial work pile when I get back though. I will be working from home this Friday through the Wednesday of next week. My parents will be out of town, and I need to stick around and make sure the dogs don’t shred the house while I’m away. Those two have an alarming propensity for destruction, and they usually get off scot free with little more than a belly ache from whatever paper they eat. Lest my dogs turn the house into a literal doghouse, I elected to stay home and watch them. I will be doing online work though, arranging housing tours, as well as a few choice documents that my supervisor wants me to work on while I’m out. I expect working from home to be very little of disturbance to me, as I worked well enough throughout 2020.

Installation art begins in a space. What is the space? It is a space that has most likely been something before. As an art student, I have only installed art in a gallery space. However, the installations at Disney have more of a history. Let’s discuss Tomorrowland. Some of the attractions include The Carousel of Progress, Tomorrowland Transit Authority People Mover, Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, and Monster’s Inc. Laugh Floor.

The attractions are all installation art. They each have a different impact on the built environment and affect those who experience them differently. The Carousel of Progress (art installation) originally commissioned by General Electric and designed by WED (the original Imagineers) for the 1964 World’s Fair. The Carousel originally installed in New York in 1964, moved to Disneyland in California in 1967 and reinstalled in Magic Kingdom in Disney World Florida in 1975. The installation had continued modifications each time the art moved but the same concept of rotating theater telling the journey of a family and technology stayed true.

Behind the scenes of Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin are the skeletons of the past installation. It is in the same building and was an installation that was constructed in 1972. After decades of use, it was decommissioned and in 1998 Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin opened. Jumping topics to branding – Buzz Lightyear was popular when I was young with the Toy Story movies and now 20 years later still going strong with the release of the Lightyear movie this summer.

I used these two examples of installation art to show the extremes. One was designed and created off-site and installed in various locations. I am sure there were many more constraints in the installation that were addressed while not influencing the outcome of the art. While the second example of art installation actually had the constraint of the location, size and shape of the space. The theme was set and the design had to fit in those boundaries.

As an artist, I expect there may be more constraints than I’ve yet experienced in the studio space. However, I think some of the constraints could be a wonderful challenge for an art installation.