When I was young I have had a dream my whole life to be famous. It’s so strange to want something so contrite and not really a value to have. But fame has started to become different to me as I started to get older. I have had a lot of successes in my work, but it goes only so far and then disappears. It seems like a constant wall I hit over, and over, and over, and over, and over. I have decided that I won’t ever be “famous” I’ll just have to Accept the fact I may be “famous” after my death as so many artists are. Which is a very disappointing reality to have, but I have accepted my fate in some strange way.
Life is so strange, and so confusing. So frustrating, and as tech gets better are pushing artists to the side with its automation and AI generation of creating art. I know there are people using this tech and accomplishing amazing things, but those of us who were born with the artist mentality and abilities are truly struggling to even matter at all. 
The dreaming is harder, the goals are harder to accomplish, and the drive is taxing when you see these people succeed without having that natural born drive within them as a true artist.
You see, I wanted to be a disney artist when I was little. I did everything I could to create and draw, and master the disney look. Only to come to find out as an adult that disney would never hire me because I do disney art. So oxymoronic to me; don’t you think? I believed Disney would want someone who knew Disney so well that they would have no doubts to hire someone like me. Boy was I mistaken. Disney won’t hire anyone who does anything that has anything to do with disney art, the likeness of Disney art, character art, or their own take on it. Oh no, they don’t want that, they want an empty mind with talent to control and tame the way they want the artists style to be presented to the world through Disney branded goods. In other words, they want your talent under their control and your style to be a sellout under their control. You get to be a disney artist, but totally owned and managed under their guise of you being the talent. Not someone who has spent their entire life creating something for the passion of a brand, or their talent. Really confusing, really sad, really frustrating and so moronic in my book. Young people, if you create disney art and dream of being a disney artist, don’t do disney anything, ever! They won’t hire you! It’s a sad fact that I have faced with a reality and honest truth.
What Walt Disney intended for his company has long died with him and the Walt disney company has lost sight of what his dreams were for the park, and the art, and the entertainment for those who loved the message of his mission. Now the Walt Disney Company only wants robots, cookie cutter artists doing the bidding of talentless control freaks and micromanaging of corporate control and greed. I have tried so many times, I honestly try to never give up hope, give hope my beliefs that I have some talent m, or give up my drive to continue doing what I believed abs trained my whole life to do, “wish upon a star” to become what I wanted in this lifetime. Sadly I don’t know who and what I am anymore after the pandemic. It’s another wall I hit and well, I’m stuck, competing with cheap plastic mass produced items hitting the market; keeping me in the dark and too expensive for people who would rather get quantity than quality. I’m so tired of being me. I’m so tired of trying without any result. It’s frustrating and I don’t want to die without living my life I was born to live.
The one joy that has any tie or connecting to the idea Walt Disney would have loved and hired me as an artist is when Imagineer Rolly Crump saw my work and said, “yes, Walt would have hired him.” (Foolish Mortals Documentary 2017). Sometimes that’s all we needed to know after struggling for so long with no answers.
I know I’m doing the right thing, I mean I have bad disney steal my concepts many times now. Seems to me they scour the web for ideas from real artists that they don’t have to pay. Sure a brand is a brand, and intellectual property is what it is. But when an artist dreams of something that Disney didn’t do, no matter what, that is theft and way too many of us artist get taken advantage of by this big corporation. There is no recourse of indie artists because we won’t win against the “mouse.” Which I believe should be changed.
The Walt Disney company is the biggest crook in the world. They wait for copyright to fall out of protection to snatch it up and copyright it under their brand. Cinderella, Snow White, Little Mermaid, and so on. The authors of these stories were never disney. They were stolen by disney, never purchased and now owned by this company that will surely go after you if you use an ounce of their property. It just shows you that crooks always get away with being a crook under the guise of a mouse.
No matter how many years I have wanted to be a Disney artist, I can’t help be angry knowing the truth behind their tactics. I can’t help but hate the company, and to this day have a bitter taste in my mouth for the way they treat true artists by stealing and selling their work without every paying for it. The mind and creator of any piece of work; influenced by or not should be protected and paid for their concept under the law. No corporation should get away with being the crooks and paid for other peoples ideas. It’s just how it should be.
I never want to work for them now, no matter how long I have wanted to. I can’t get past the opinions I have about them as a company now. But as an artist doing what I was born to do. These walls keep happening and I can’t compete with mass produced cheap goods. The artist life of a struggling artist is real. It sucks, it’s hard, and it’s abusive. You can’t sell who you are cheap because each piece of work you make is part of your soul as a naturally born talent in your lifetime. Now we have AI doing art, what is next for artists. Really, we’re a dying bread. It’s sad and it’s heartbreaking to be so driven that nothing else matters than to create. But people would rather buy a mass produced print at Walmart and put that on their wall than an original that no one has. Society has become cheapened by these companies stealing art from the creative mind to mass produce and market it to everyone and adding free shipping.
It’s a Walmart mentality with an Amazon shipping expectation. Buy it cheap, expect it to be shipped for free. Artists can’t compete anymore. We do what we can to survive, but the talents of the creative thinker and creative hand is dying. Soon we will all just be fed more bullshit and be numb to the corporate control game like Disney. We will all be controlled to create for others peoples successes, their riches, and our continued struggle to be stolen from and never protected or paid.
That is the true life of an artist these days. I mean rip and resellers make more than the original artist. Steal it, replicate it, sell it, call it real, and get away with it. That’s what these people are doing. We know who they are, we know what they are doing, we know they don’t care because they are narcissistic and only care about their pocket. Not what isn’t theirs. Exploiting others for their gain is the way of the world now right.
Start researching where your art is coming from. Invest into a real authentic piece of art, support someone instead of large corporations who don’t need your money. Prop up small businesses, artists, creatives. You will be doing a service for the world and others other than large controlling corporations who look at you as a number, not a human.
Humanity is losing grip with what is important, we are allowing things to get worse. We are allowing these corporations to destroy our planet, put the wrong people in charged greed, and toxic practices that are harming what was suppose to be good in our lives. You got to wake up to it, see the lies first, see the crooks first, see the truth behind the marketing and make choices that will help the creator behind the art instead of the thief’s reselling the art.
I had a dream to become someone famous once. Now I just have a dream to survive and pay my bills while not living a miserable life before I die. We all die, no escaping it, we all have to make the best choices for ourselves to live fully before the curtain closes. Make better choices and stop supporting the wrong side. Support your neighbor, neighborhood, city, state. Not corporations that care nothing about you.
Support small businesses and individuals. Become an artist yourself and stop working for these corporations profiting off your hard work and talents. We only have this one chance. Don’t make them rich, make yourself rich!
Topher Adam 2022