On October 15, 2019, I was honored with an invitation from HOLA (Hispanic Organization for Leadership Achievement) to speak at a panel presentation to commemorate the finale of Hispanic Heritage Month. The event called Celebrando las Artes which took place at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort included the artist panel, latin inspired music and delicious food. The other artists in the panel from The Walt Disney Company included Rocío Cintrón, Alex Maher, and Fabiola Garza. The evening began with an introduction of each of the artists by Juliana Trujillo, president of HOLA and moderator for the evening. Afterward, each artist took a few minutes to talk about their very personal Latino journeys to where they are today.
Rocío, an incredibly talented artist from Glendale, California talked about making her dream a reality of working with toys for Disney. She has created a wide variety of dolls and toys in addition to creating illustrations of artists and female figures that influenced her through the years. Alex, whose parents are Cuban immigrants has worked for Disney since 1991, shared his character artist experience with us by talking about how he was part of a very small team of designers and illustrators that developed Merchandising opportunities for the company. Being Walt Disney his source of inspiration since very young, he had the opportunity to work and meet some of the nine old men and Diane Disney throughout his career. Alex has developed thousands of designs from pins to sculptures to collectible fine arts. After Alex’s presentation, Fabiola honored us with her story about her Mexican background and how that culture influenced her work as a character artist for Disney. She has illustrated several books including Disney’s Coco golden book. She has contributed to the stories of the company by creating a new character friend to Duffy named ‘Olu, who lives at Disney’s Aulani Resort in Hawaii.
For my part of the presentation, I shared photos, drawings, inks, paintings and graphic design examples from my past while I described my journey from Panama to the United States in search of my artistic dreams. I continued sharing how it became easier for me to begin experimenting with writing and going through the process of producing my book Sun Night, that included the layout design, cover art, and marketing.
After taking questions from Juliana and the audience, we proceeded to the ballroom next door where HOLA had a buffet with a specially created dessert for the event. Each of the artists had a postcard created for the audience to take, and we had the opportunity to autograph these after the presentation. The celebration included live music and networking for the Cast who attended. We were also lucky to have Stephen, one of our Disney Ambassadors who was able to share his experience of the event via Instagram.
This was an incredible experience to not only share our stories but also meet some amazing artists. I was also incredibly inspired by my colleague's stories and humbled by so many of the Cast that stopped by to get our autographs after the panel presentation and to tell us how our conversation inspired them to continue on their own journeys.
