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After Speakers of the Mouse, Sue and I split up and headed for the next round of Walt's Workshops and Lillian's Library Seminars. Sue attended a presentation called "The Disneyland that Never Was", known to repeat ConventionEars as the "Bruce and Dave Show" after special guests Bruce Gordon and David Mumford. Disneyland Imagineer Tony Baxter joined the discussion, and a good time was had by all. Sue will be bringing you more from that show in another column.

Nightmare Before Christmas / Haunted Holiday props and artwork on display

While Sue was enjoying the antics of these three well-know Disney personalities, I was attempting to find a polite way to leave a presentation called "Connecting with Family - the Magic of the Internet". Expecting to hear a discussion about online resources, I instead found myself watching as two well intentioned gentlemen tried to demonstrate to the sole other occupant in the room how to use eBay to buy Disney pins. From Japan. In Japanese. With a computer that not only did NOT have the Japanese character set installed, but also featured the slowest modem on earth. Did I mention the ConventionEar did not speak English, and that neither CM spoke Japanese? While the whole mess was amusing in it's own right, I was very aware that there was fun to be had in other rooms. With a nod of apology to the hosts, I went to go seek a more enlightening topic.

A guest learns how Disney characters put on their wigs in the costuming seminar

Fortunately, I didn't have far to go. In one room, Steve Davison was giving another group a sneak peek at the Nightmare Before Christmas and Luminaria presentation. Across the hall, Dave Smith was entertaining guests with his stories as "Our Disney Family Historian". Down the way, at the Downtown Disney AMC theaters, Michael Broggie was telling "The Secret of Walt's Barn", and 5 original Mouseketeers were speaking frankly about their lives at "A Mouseketeer Reunion". With 12 different presentations, and only 4 "class" sessions, ConventionEars had to make some tough decisions about which seminar to attend, and which to pass up. Good thing I already knew how to use eBay.

Sue and I met up after the seminars, and headed back to the exhibit hall to see the signings at the Artists' Showcase. While most of the Limited Edition items available for sale at the convention were already pre-signed by their creators, some guests wanted to meet the artists in person and have other items signed. Dozens of guests were walking around with their convention scrapbook, asking the artist to sign the page on which their creation was photographed.

An artist hand paints charger plates for the coming Nightmare Before Christmas event

The Artists' Showcase was one of the most wonderful aspects of the Disneyana Convention for me. The artists were not "on display", they were there to talk to the crowd. Several had portfolios of their work, including a lot of non-Disney pieces. Some were actually working on pieces, molding new sculpture, carving figurines, painting and drawing.

Elisabete Gomes and an assistant were hand-painting the charger plates that will be offered at the Nightmare Before Christmas merchandise special event. Sue chatted with Eric Robison as he worked on his pieces for the event, while I talked with Terri Hardin about her new Tinkerbell figurine. Paddy Gordon was there with a miniature of the Mickey Mouse chair I coveted as a child, and Bob Baker showed how his Marionettes are assembled by hand.

Terri Hardin shows guests images from her future Tinkerbell piece.

We spoke to David Avanzino, who created the Disneyland letters sold at the event and at the auction. I joked with him that we had considered bidding on the final auction lot, a personalized set of up to 10 letters, but that "MousePlanet" was 11 letters long and we had to pass. (That lot went for $1,700 - we were kidding)

Dave then told us that he actually used photos from MousePlanet as reference material when he was creating his Tower of the Four Winds piece for a recent Disneyana shop event. It seems the reference material provided to him by Disney did not show enough of the tower in sufficient detail, and so he went looking on the Internet for better photos. He found photos on MousePlanet that had been contributed by a reader, and used those to help design his piece. Wow - we never know who might be reading MousePlanet!

David Avanzino and some of his pre-production samples.

Marie Osmond was the focal point of an enormous line, as guests waited for over an hour for her autograph. Marie talked at length with some collectors, recognizing guests from previous signings. She even traded pins with guests, and announced the coming release of her new Pin Trading doll.

Poof, it's signed, it's collectible!

Guests dig through stacks of posters to find their favorite character

Other DDG artists were creating sketches while guests watched. Once a sketch was completed, it was placed in one of several bins along a row of tables, where it could be purchased for $40 - $120, depending on the complexity of the artwork. Guests were snatching up these original works and placing special requests for favorite characters. Each artist had a sign at their workstation, giving a bit of their background, education and history with the Disney company.

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Adrienne Vincent-Phoenix is the super-shopper behind MouseShoppe, your personal and unofficial shopping service for the Disneyland Resort, and the owner of CharmingShoppe, a Disney collectibles store located in Anaheim.

In addition to scouring the park to find you the latest and greatest merchandise, she keeps you updated on all of the merchandise events happening in the parks.

If you want to talk to her about this column, merchandise, or events, contact her here.

Visit our other shopping service, MouseMemories.com.

Don't forget to take a gander at our Disney CD and book selections available from

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