The Museum of Make Believe – a world of pure imagination
By DIANNE RUSSELL
Through an amazing collaboration, The Museum of Make Believe founders husband and wife team Geoff and Amy Mitchell – along with Kelsey Irvin (of Kelsey Michaels Gallery) – have created a magical place that makes you wish you were 8 years old again. However, contrary to what one might think – The Museum of Make Believe is for all ages – adults are equally enchanted as they enter this immersive dream-like world.
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Photo by Mary Hurlbut
Founders Geoff and his wife Amy met in school
When you put two gifted artists and a talented writer together, the resulting vision is mesmerizing. This nonprofit, which launched in Laguna in April 2024, opened visitors’ eyes to the realm of storytelling, fantasy and art – all in one place. “It’s a multi-layered experience,” said Geoff. It takes the experience of visiting a museum and expands it on many levels. Within an extraordinary art piece (the space itself), visitors enter a realm of imagination while at the same time, have the opportunity to experience fine art.
Who wouldn’t want to go on a Treasure Hunt, visit a Storybook Forest or sit in the Starlight Park Theater and listen to Amy’s tale of The Strange Secrets of Starlight Park, where a young boy named Evander runs away from home and finds himself in a magical long-abandoned amusement park hidden in the deep dark forest? Add Geoff and Irvin’s artwork into this mesmerizing mix, and it invites visitors to stop and look.
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Photo by Mary Hurlbut
Kelsey Irvin with one of her paintings
A multimedia artist, Geoff, grew up in the Deep South’s Gulf Coast with a long rich history of storytelling and, according to their website, on hot summer days, it was common to share local legends, tall tales and ghost stories – the perfect background for creation of the Museum of Make Believe.
The idea for the museum was born five years ago and the Mitchells were thrilled when the day finally came to be able to have their first in-person event at the Muzeo Museum and Cultural Center in Anaheim. They transformed the 5,000-square-foot main gallery into a vintage carnival complete with booths, activities, a stage show and more.
“I met Kelsey in 2015,” Geoff said. “As a group, we’ve been talking about this since 2019, and we finally got a physical location. Before that, we did a lot of virtual events during the pandemic, so we were gathering a following even before this place. It was officially formed in 2020, which was sort of odd timing, but I think we did it for what was going on in the world, and it soon became obvious that we needed an actual space. At that time, we had only a few concrete ideas in the form of conceptual drawings. Kelsey and I were thinking on the same page with the trees and bringing the outside inside.”
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Photo by Mary Hurlbut
The Storybook Forest beckons you to follow the path
Originally from the Buffalo, N.Y. area, Irvin, came out West in 2004 intending to go to Colorado or Oregon but ended up in Laguna. “I stumbled upon the right people in the right situation,” she said. “That was 21 years ago and then Mike and I met in 2005, and we incorporated Kelsey Michaels Gallery in 2007.”
Irvin, who had been drawing as long as she can remember, went from drawing to painting. “I had a painting 101 professor who said some people who draw well are terrible at painting, and I thought ‘oh no’ because I knew I could draw.” She admits that the first thing she did out of art school was to break the rules.
Geoff came to painting via graphic design. “I first went to the Western Michigan University where I met Joe DeLuca, a passionate Italian abstract expressionist painter. He was very inspirational to me, and I wanted to do what he was doing. So, having never made a painting in my life, I just decided to switch. I made my parents nervous because graphic design was a real job.”
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Photo by Mary Hurlbut
Geoff reads in the Starlight Theater
“Kelsey and I have a lot in common,” Geoff said. “We both have a love of the past and nostalgia but we’re also trying to capture the present in a way that in 20 years it can still be appreciated. We’re both mixed media artists with an eye to nostalgia but we’re also very different.”
Artwork by Geoff and Irvin is on view throughout the museum. Amy’s storytelling talent is evident in the descriptions of art scenes and the story of The Strange Secrets of Starlight Park.
“My role is both more of the business end (running the day-to-day, getting our 501(c)(3) set up, grant writing and the like) along with the creative writing/stories,” said Amy, who met Geoff in school. “I will say that Geoff and I make a great team for the stories. I tend to get an initial idea and rough draft and then he edits, often suggesting ideas that vastly improve the stories and sometimes takes them into a completely different direction.”
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Photo by Mary Hurlbut
A miniature designed by Geoff
“Inspiration is kind of a fascinating thing…it is always hard to say what makes a story come about, but I am often inspired by small things…passing a person on the street, seeing a small yellow bird high up in a tree, taking a walk with my dog. What I find out in the world and my own childhood are probably what inspires me,” Amy said.
Geoff’s inspiration comes from the fantasy world, and he admits he has always been a Disneyland fan and admired Tim Burton’s art.
“At art shows, I always felt weird, it was as if I was saying ‘look at my artwork,’” explained Geoff, “whereas this is storytelling. We aren’t asking people to come look at the artwork, but you’re free to look at it.”
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Photo by Mary Hurlbut
Another of Geoff’s creations, which is part of the larger display
As wonderful as this space is, it’s only a stepping-stone to a more expansive dream. It’s part of a plan they hope to translate to a larger scale.
“Eventually there’s the next phase which is a bigger space with a forest and the space would have something that would accommodate an art café based on the nature of fun,” Geoff said. “This is a space that we’re using for gathering momentum. The vision is much grander and bigger because of what’s possible, and this was the best way to show what it takes. It’s really a taste of what we can do on a much larger scale.”
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Photo by Mary Hurlbut
Starlight Park Theater, where you can sit and listen to Amy’s story
According to Irvin, “We’ll have different concepts that we’ve merged. When visitors walk in there will be a shipwreck you could go into. Our idea was always to pair an immersive museum with a traditional museum.”
“We want it to be something you can walk into so it would be within the museum’s or indoor space, but it will appear as if you’re outdoors, almost bioluminescent with lights like fireflies,” Geoff said. “We’ve touched on it here, but the next step would be on a much grander scale.”
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Photo by Geoff Mitchell
Tree and sculpture of Oscar (on right) honoring Amy and Geoff’s late cat
Amy sums up the vision behind The Museum of Make Believe: “I have always been interested in imagination. I have been writing since I was able to pick up a pen and form words and I think you have to be into the world of ‘make believe’ to write and create worlds. I grew up in the pre-digital age, so I was always out in the woods, creating my own characters and playing pretend. Our hope is that the museum brings a bit of that back to a world that is so focused on screens.”
The Museum of Make Believe is located at 1590 South Coast Highway, Ste. 5, Laguna Beach. It is open Thursday through Sunday from 11 a.m.-7 p.m.
For more information, go to www.museumofmakebelieve.org.
Follow them on Instagram @museumofmakebelieve.
