Help a disabled Director preserve animation art

If you are a fan of THE DISNEY AFTERNOON or the collaborations between STEVEN SPIELBERG and WARNER BROS that produced TINY TOON ADVENTURES, ANIMANIACS and PINKY &THE BRAIN, or if you fell in love with the original SPACEJAM starring MICHAEL JORDAN, BUGS BUNNY and the rest of th LOONEY TUNES, you might have stumbled across the name KIRK TINGBLAD in the credits. Let me tell you my story of a skinny young kid who went from a small town in Northwestern Wisconsin to the red carpets of NEW YORK and HOLLYWOOD winning both a GEORGE FOSTER PEABODY AWARD and an EMMY AWARD for Directing ANIMANIACS and PINKY & THE BRAIN, working on the characters that entertain people all over the world, only to be dealt a hand of cards that forced me to give up my dream job of working at both WALT DISNEY ANIMATION and WARNER BROS ANIMATION, and in its place, days filled with chronic pain that force me to lie down 95% of the day. I have been diagnosed with the birth defect Spina Bifida Occulta and severe nerve damage that resulted from scars that formed after surgery was done to save the use of my legs because my spine was close to snapping out of place, paralyzing me from the waist down. The surgery was a success, but the nerve damage from the scarring as my incisions healed has left me permanently disabled

Now to the point of this GOFUNDME fundraiser. Even though my dream’s life was shorter than I imagined, it was so much better than I could have ever guessed, I want to give something back to inspire today’s young people. To show them that dreams do come true, even for those who live far away from where the entertainment capitals of America are, and today with mass instantaneous communication, the dream is even closer.

In my 30+ years experience in the animation business, I have acquired by purchasing from animation art dealers or by accumulating roughs of my animation and storyboards. Except for a couple of dozen animation cels that I have managed to get framed, I have the rest of the tens of thousands of drawings stored in in dozens of cardboard boxes. Sadly, longer they are stored in the high acid content cardboard boxes, the faster the paper will deteriorate.

I am not - I repeat - I am not doing this to sell any of these drawings.

I am asking for help not only to save all of these drawings from being lost forever by having them removed from the cardboard boxes and put into proper flat files of steel or wood to preserve everything and to take the best of the best framed in a professional manner. It is my hope to make part of this collection available to be put in museums, galleries or any other type of venue that would be appropriate to display the the work. My goal it to share the drawings in both small towns and bigger cities in order to reach as many people as possible.

In order to convince a museum, gallery or some other appropriate venue to have a show of this type, you have to have the work ready to go, professionally framed with caption that describe the pieces and where they fit as part of the pre-computer animation production. There are also a lot of pieces to a show of this type that the artist must supply. A book of the show, including the cost of getting the photos for a book of this type requires. There are travel costs that go into getting the work and taking it to and from it’s destination. Advertising banners and posters indoors and outdoors on television and streaming. A good way to promote “free” advertising is by having a show opening with catered food and drinks. The events are a great way of spreading the word around to get more people to see the show, but all of this costs money, a lot of money. Imagine how great would it be if schools could bring their students to an exhibition of this type and it leads to many going for their dream, enriching all of our lives.

In the end, I hope the materials currently stored away in cruddy old cardboard boxes can inspire young people to go after their dream no matter if it is writing, acting, singing, dance, and perhaps the next great animator.