So today on the podcast, we continue our story of Disney legend Mary Blair.

The person many believed was Walt's favorite artist.

We are now a few years after Walt's death in our story, when his brother Roy oversaw the Disney

company. Though Walt once had larger plans for the Florida Resort,

Roy felt that without his brother, it was best to move forward with a project that looked

more like a larger version of Disneyland, only with more hotels, restaurants, and outdoor

areas for recreation. As he was a business person, Roy also scaled back on

some of Walt's original ideas for themed hotels. There would still be one themed hotel, the Polynesian,

though Walt initially had envisioned many themed hotels, and there would now be one hotel that spoke more to Roy's experience,

that of a business executive who traveled the world for work.

The contemporary would be a hotel that belonged far more to Roy's World

than it did to previous Disney experiences.

But as it was being developed, it became clear that this hotel with its current plans

would lack the playful theming that had come to define a Disney resort.

The solution for this lack of theme and the lack of visual art was to hire Mary Blair

to create a massive mural. For the contemporaries' large open atrium, a space that was over 90 feet high,

she would work on this in addition to her other work for Disney World and in addition to managing a new set of problems that she faced at home.

And this is where we pick up our story today.

Today. primarily working from home, Mary refined mural designs for the contemporary hotel, a massive piece of art depicting life in and around the Grand Canyon with a focus on Native

American children, Southwest scenery, and animals. Children and animals are such a part of the

Art of Disney, Mary said, that they were chosen for the mural to show activities of the people of the

Grand Canyon with a touch of fun. Mary's touch of fun also had a serious function.

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