Change Of Medium, Change Of Pace Disney Artists Brainstorm During Trip To Montana

When the people who dream up ideas for Disney theme parks want a fresh outlook, they head north.

They come to Montana, where they meet with artist Tom Gilleon for a week.

Once a month, Disney sends a half dozen or so of its 1,200 “Imagineers” to Montana, where they learn to crawl out of their California comfort zones and take a crisp new approach to their work.

“Everywhere you turn here, there’s something to paint,” Julie Svendsen, one of the artists, said during a recent visit. “All you have to do is stand in one place and then pivot.”

Once these artists settle on an idea, it is their job to design a theme park, and produce paintings and models for convincing proposals.

Gilleon, who works exclusively for Disney, hosted his first workshop three years ago.

After he met some sculptors last year at the Great Falls airport, Gilleon took them to a restaurant, without knowing the place was sponsoring a Spam-sculpting contest that day.

“Every one of them looked at me like I had set this up,” Gilleon said of his visitors. “Thirty minutes off the plane from L.A., and already they were doing Mickey Mouse in Spam.”

For Disney artists, the unpredictable is part of Montana’s charm.

Gilleon estimates he has met with at least 50 Disney artists, research and development people, writers and computer wizards, many for repeat visits.

A Florida native, Gilleon worked at Disney World in Orlando until 1979, when Disney transferred him to its California operations. He and his wife, Laurie, moved to Montana in 1982.

Gilleon, who is 55, has a log studio in Cascade, with a panoramic view of the Missouri River. The studio houses a 40-by-60-inch rendering of a turn-of-the-century New England fishing village. It is one aspect of Disney Sea, which will constitute the second phase of Disney’s Tokyo park.

When he first started giving workshops, Gilleon flew to California and met with artists on Disney’s campus. But it was hard to concentrate.

“Two or three times a day, someone would get a phone call,” Gilleon said. In Montana, the participants have a radically different environment.

Granted, they are housed and dine at the well-regarded Fly Fishers’ Inn. But their rooms have no fax machines, no telephones or televisions.

Participants might take in the C.M. Russell Museum in Great Falls, paint some scenes around Gilleon’s studio and visit an old mining town.

“I think if we were doing this in Cincinnati, we’d have a hard sell getting people to come,” he said.