So what’s the big deal about this goat anyway? The five-legged goat inside Disney's Contemporary Resort is part of a towering 4-sided mural depicting the Grand Canyon. The mural was designed by artist Mary Blair, who also designed the look of “it’s a small world,” and contributed to some well-known Disney movies such as Cinderella and Peter Pan.
The Grand Canyon Concourse
If you look hard enough at the wall that is most difficult to see (above the monorail track), you can spot a happy mountain goat with five legs. Blair felt that she could not recreate nature as accurately as nature could create itself, and so she intentionally included a mistake that now lives as a legend to die-hard Disney trivia spotters.
Hey, that goat has five legs!
As much as I wanted to bring this goat to life, I like to keep my designs music-related – especially when contributing to XStitch Magazine. The “mixtape” issues, however, do not have a theme, and so they are a blank canvas for us designers to contribute anything that tickles our fancy. Since this little guy had been an idea on my back burner for quite some time, I took advantage of the opportunity to design him for issue #26. I guess that's what happens when you spend so much time at Disney World.
A boy and his goat
Since this piece is basically made of blocks of color, I had an idea to photograph each block as it was completed and then string them all together as an animated gif. It was a fun little project, but (as you can see) my forte is cross stitch, not photography. As a result, the lighting and color balances change with each shot. There’s even a surprise guest appearance by my needle minder which I forgot to remove for one of the pics.
Given that I’ve been elbow deep in rock and roll for most of my stitching career, I assumed that’s what my customers are looking for. I am really surprised at how many people seem to love this diversion. Then again, mountain goats are pretty cool. Slap the Disney name on it, and BAM – ready-made audience. If I am inspired again, there are one or two characters from "it's a small world" that are just begging to be stitched.