Hi everybody! Hi Doctor Nick!

And so it is that I pull myself out from under the dirt of helping my parents remodel their backyard for my litle sister's wedding reception, and right after that insanity, it was back to the grind as we attempted to pull out from under the paperwork of another tax extension deadline. Hopefully, I'll be around these parts more often with life calming down and returning to something resembling normal.

I feel like I've been simply surving from deadline to deadline. One thing I've learned from all this is that whenever someone tells you that all hard work is good for you, they're wrong. Don't get me wrong as hard work is a good thing, but excessive hard work without enough time to unwind creates tremendous stress and makes for exhaustion. Just as Yoda understood that for the Jedi, it is time to eat as well, I think he also valued the importance of keeping a Jedi's mind sharp and focused through good recreation.

And so, the time finally came to do some unwinding. A friend of mine owns a Disneyana collectibles store and held an art show this past Saturday with Harrison Ellenshaw. Harrison's father Peter was a Disney Legend who worked for years with Walt Disney himself and did background paintings for a variety of Disney films, including 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Like his father before him, Harrison Ellenshaw also went into painting, and after he was shown some concept art in the mid 1970s ended up doing backgrounds and matte paintings for a little space opera now known as Star Wars. He worked with Ralph McQuarrie on both Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back and of course got to work with George Lucas. He also worked on The Black Hole and Tron among other films. In subsequent years, he's followed in his father's footsteps and done paintings for Disney, including some collaborations with his father. He also told us of how his father would go pour his whole heart and soul into his paintings, never satisfied until it was perfect in his mind. Peter Ellenshaw felt like something was wrong with one of his paintings when he learned that somebody had sold it. He wanted to create a work that would be enjoyed forever by the person who bought it. As a collector, I appreciate the kind of thought and care that go into creating such a masterpiece

Now, I know that some of you have met some of the talented men and women who worked on Star Wars, but this was the first time for me. It was neat for me to talk with him about the process of how he decides what scene he's going to paint. He described for me how he watches a film and tries to capture a moment that's at the heart of the story. He mentioned that when he first saw the concept art Ralph McQuarrie did for the film, it was something that he knew he wanted to work on.

When talking about Star Wars, he spoke of George Lucas' hands on nature and vision for the movies. He told me that George would sometimes take an entire day just to write one page because of everything that he was trying to pack in. In describing Yoda to Harrison Ellenshaw, Lucas said that people would probably get bored watching some random teacher, but when you made him little and green and had him speak backwards, you had a much more interesting character. Since Yoda is easily my favorite character from the original trilogy, I enjoyed learning a little bit more about the diminutive Jedi Master.

For me, it was topped off by the opportunity to acquire a collaboration painting done by Peter and Harrison Ellenshaw with embellishments on the piece itself by Harrison Ellenshaw, thus making it a one of a kind piece. I couldn't quite believe it as I talked with a man who worked on Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back while he was embellishing a painting for me that now hangs in my room. What's more is that the piece is titled Once Upon A Dream from Sleeping Beauty, which some of you know is my favorite Disney film. Now, unless I can convince both Disney and Lucasfilm to make a special edition and/or sequel to Sleeping Beauty that involves lightsabers, this is as close as I'm going to get to having a piece of fine art that combines my all time two favorite movies.

If anyone so desires, here are a couple of pics.

Harrison Ellenshaw embellishing Once Upon A Dream

Harrison Ellenshaw and Qui-Tom Servo with Qui-Tom's painting