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

many believe was Walt's favorite artist.

Over the course of this series, we followed Mary's development from childhood to art school

through various early animation studios in Los Angeles and then into Disney where she

helped design the overall presentation

of key Disney features such as Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan. In more recent episodes,

we explored her solo career in New York and then her return to Disney to work on It's a Small

World as the primary art director.

When we last left off, we were exploring how Mary's success on Small World opened other Disney-related doors for her,

including an offer to make a large public mural at the Jules Stein Eye Clinic in Los Angeles, a mural that

helped elevate her career and also contributed to problems she faced at home with her husband,

artist and businessman Lee Blair. And today, we pick up right where we left off, with Mary working to finish that mural,

a public piece of art that adapted her designs for small world characters into a new setting.

During the fall of 1966, Mary worked with the Franciscan studio to transfer her design to 220 one-foot square tiles.

The clay arranged through a process to ensure high consistency was mixed and pressed in such

a way that the mural, if cared for

indoors, should last for 200 years, perhaps longer.

The ceramic studio fired a few test tiles complete with Mary's designs and the colored glaze

to check the process.

Once the test tiles were approved, Mary oversaw the transfer of her large design onto individual tiles.

Using a type of carbon paper she and a team from the Franciscan studio transferred a slightly enlarged version of her design onto clay,

as the tiles would shrink slightly when fired.

...