Daily Inspiration: Meet Amy and Geoff Mitchell (Museum of Make Believe)

Today we’d like to introduce you to Amy and Geoff Mitchell (Museum of Make Believe).

Hi Amy and Geoff, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Once upon a time, there was a place called the Museum of Make Believe. It was a very special place for all people to enjoy. Right in the very center of it stood a wise old tree with gnarled bark and roots with secret hidden nooks. If you closed your eyes and listened, you could hear the chirping of birds and haunting music filling the air. All around, there was something magical to see like brightly colored giant mushrooms and charming mysterious creatures that may even bring you a magical potion to savor. In the blink of an eye, the sky would turn into a deep blue night sparking with glowing fireflies. There were stories to be told here; stories of haunted lockets, stardust, portals, buried treasure and even how to capture time.

By now, you must be wondering where this Museum of Make Believe was…or is it still there now?

First, we should tell you how the Museum of Make Believe came to be. Multimedia artist, Geoff Mitchell, grew up in the Deep South’s Gulf Coast with a long rich history of storytelling and on hot summer days, it was common to share local legends, tall tales and ghost stories. All of this narrative fueled his imagination and provided an array of subjects for his visual art that includes miniatures, paintings, music, short films, storybooks and more. What he loves the most about making art is that it carries on the tradition of storytelling and bringing out of the ordinary tales to life. He and his wife, Amy, founded the Museum of Make Believe in April of 2020 as a place to keep this tradition alive. Amy has been a lifelong storyteller, creating new worlds and a cast of characters by putting pen to paper as soon as she learned to write, masterfully weaving ghost stories and fairy tales to accompany all of the artwork. Once the Museum has raised enough funds to create a permanent location, it will be home to creative visionaries and community leaders to help us preserve the timeless art of storytelling within a unique arts environment that is both enchanting and ethereal.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Starting our Museum in 2020 created some unique challenges, including not being able to have in-person fundraisers or galas. That forced us to pivot from the traditional nonprofit mindset by creating a series of virtual events. It was crucial to us that our “zoom” events still felt like something special with fantasy theming, not a business meeting. To help our events stand out, we created full-stage set designs and had live costumed hosts to introduce each pre-recorded storytelling segment. By hosting these events virtually, we were able to have entertainment from all across the country…we even had Disney Legend, Bob Gurr, and the great-great grandson of Charles Dickens join us! We decided this year to host another virtual event since they were so successful during the pandemic…and we had people from all across the States attend along with people from Switzerland, Australia, England and Canada. This struggle turned out to be a benefit because it allowed us to try something new and now we always plan to have some sort of virtual aspect to allow people from all across the country to enjoy the Museum of Make Believe.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Geoff and I have built the Museum of Make Believe to create a whimsical world of handcrafted miniatures, puppetry, dreamlike paintings, thematic lighting, costumes, film and sound, all depicting original ghost stories and fairy tales of the mystical and the mythic. The stories are timeless and somehow familiar as if conjured from a shared memory; or an imaginary world that has to be believed to be seen.

Our exhibits are designed to engage all senses so that you truly feel like you are stepping into another world. We are currently hard at work on creating a golden age of radio drama, “Strange Secrets of Starlight Park.” The story tells the tale of a young boy that runs away from home and enters the magical world of an abandoned amusement park, where he meets a wonderfully odd cast of characters. Our preview exhibit will tell this story and be built as a forest setting with elements of the amusement park scattered throughout so that you truly enter the same world the boy does. We are most proud of creating nostalgic storytelling through such a wide variety of artwork. There is nothing else quite like the Museum of Make Believe!

Any big plans?
We believe that the Museum of Make Believe is in all of our imaginations and deep in our hearts. It is in the part of us that awakens when we read timeless ghost stories and fairy tales. After all, stories transport us…they inspire us to love, to forgive, to be better and to make our hearts bigger. We have begun the journey to bring the magic of the Museum of Make Believe to life so that we can all enjoy it together. We are currently fundraising to open a proof of concept preview museum by 2024. This will allow us to build upon our vision and gather visitor feedback as we further develop our concept for an enduring and powerful museum. By starting with a smaller preview museum, we can open our doors sooner and set the stage for completing our full-scale vision within five years. We are currently in the heart of our capital campaign to raise the funds for the operating expenses for the first 18 months of the preview space that will feature our “Strange Secrets of Starlight Park” exhibit. We are fundraising, recruiting goodwill ambassadors, creating new artwork and recording three episodes of our radio show. page

Contact Info:

• Website: www.museumofmakebelieve.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/museumofmakebelieve/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MuseumofMakeBelieve
• Youtube: @museumofmakebelieve3884
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/geoff-mitchell-studio
• Other: https://givebutter.com/c/preview

Image Credits
All taken by the Museum of Make Believe team.