TivoliToo:
Sculpting success one creative project at a time
Mary Diedrick Hansen
Staff Writer
If ever there was a Santa’s workshop it must resemble the 30,000-square-foot studio space at TivoliToo in Mendota Heights. The company, perhaps best known for its Peanuts statues in St. Paul, brings fantasy to life by designing and sculpting life-size and larger-than-life 3-D characters from favorite childhood books and movies.
"To infinity and beyond!" is the famous cry of "Toy Story’s" indomitable hero, Buzz Lightyear, who stands in the company’s entryway next to a gigantic hand filled with candy for the taking. Lightyear’s motto could easily be the slogan of TivoliToo, which has been traveling at the speed of light by exploring new creative frontiers.
It’s hard to believe that the shop that created a 48-foot-long pirate ship for a water park in Wisconsin Dells and finely-detailed Charles Dickens Christmas villages started out as a jewelry store in the Highland Park neighborhood of St. Paul. TivoliToo has been in Mendota Heights since 2005, with 10,000 square feet for offices in addition to the studio. The story behind its success rivals some of the most amazing projects it has created.
In 1980 Randi Johnson began sculpting jewelry in her shop, which she named "Tivoli" after a famous amusement park in Copenhagen. The magic began when she decided to sculpt themed charm bracelets. She designed 35 different types, ranging from sports to "at the beach." A representative in New York began selling her line and people started to take notice. Her dad suggested she contact Parker Brothers about designing a bracelet in honor of the Monopoly game’s 50th anniversary, so she sculpted icons of the original board game. Company executives at Parker Brothers loved them and she acquired the company license to develop that line of jewelry. This gave the little jewelry store its own niche in character design jewelry. Over the next three years she acquired licenses from other companies, including Mattel, from Peanuts creator Charles Schulz, Disney and from Major League Baseball teams, who wanted custom designed pendants and earrings.
The big break
Things really took off when Warner Brothers opened studio stores in the early 1990s and wanted to talk to the person who made the charm bracelets. Could she sculpt Bugs Bunny on top of a pen, or on a picture frame or in a snow globe?
"Sure!" Johnson said, never mind the fact that she had just one sculptor working with her at the time. Almost overnight the company grew from a two-person shop to 17. It was in 1991 that the jewelry store closed and the carpeting in the 675-square-foot space was ripped out so it could become a model shop for the sculptors.
Because he lived a block-and-a-half from the store, Johnson’s younger brother, Hart, got roped into the project. Illustrators hiked to his house to work on his kitchen table since the shop was too crowded.
"It was truly like working out of your garage," recalled Hart Johnson, who took time off from his work at Land-O-Lakes to write a business plan for his sister so she could get a loan to expand her space.
In 1996 the collection of designers and sculptors hauled their equipment to a 6500-square-foot space on Ford Parkway in St. Paul. With ten times more room, every sculptor had his or her own bench and tools. Along with the move came a name change. Johnson could not part with her original "Tivoli," so she added "Too" to acknowledge the new direction her company was taking.
From 1990 to 1996 TivoliToo became a model shop for the gift industry, developing original models and prototypes for Lenox and Department 56. The next big break occurred with the opening of the Rainforest Café chain nationally. Johnson brought in a 12-inch prototype of a sign they had requested.
"It’s great," they said. "We need it to be 30 feet."
"Sure, no problem," she assured them. She had no idea how to do it, but was confident that with 15 sculptors they would be able to figure out a way. Because the Rainforest Café wanted to bring three dimensional animals to life, they had to learn a new aspect of the business: sculpting big.
"Now we had a ‘little stuff’ division and ‘big stuff’ division," said Hart Johnson. "What we did was take 2-dimensional line-art and make it 3-D. Big 3-D!"
Other jobs began to pour in, including creating the 48-foot pirate ship for Treasure Island Water Park at Wisconsin Dells. Underwater Adventures at the Mall of America (MOA) needed a mascot, and along came "Sharky."
With the company growing rapidly, Johnson needed help in managing the business aspects. Who could possibly be more qualified than her analytical brother Hart, who had an M.B.A., 10 years of corporate experience and a working knowledge of TivoliToo?
"I officially came on board in 2000. I am the reality, Randi is the fluff," he said with a laugh. "She didn’t have e-mail, computers or letterhead."
"Get that and I’ll take the job," he told his sister.
And then came Snoopy
TivoliToo was put on the map in 2000 with the Charles Schulz "Peanuts project." Then-mayor Norm Coleman wanted to do something to honor the St. Paul native. A group had gathered to discuss ideas and someone proposed doing what is known as a "statue event" similar to an undertaking in Chicago that had featured statues of cows. Since Randi Johnson had met Charles Schulz when she got the Peanuts license for her charm bracelets, she was asked to contact him. She called him on a Wednesday.
"If it’s something you want to do and you’ll be involved, fine," he said.
Four days later he died. Because of the close proximity to his death, the project took on significant meaning for the Schulz family.
"We became so close to the family—the wife, kids and grandkids. It turned into a five-year project and brought millions of visitors and dollars to the city," said Hart Johnson. The Schultz family wanted to do a similar "statue event" in Santa Rosa, Calif. where they live. The statues were shipped to California where the project continued for three more years. "We built bronze statues near the Landmark Center (in downtown St. Paul) as a lasting legacy, and started creating statue events for other cities."
Business started to change again with more large-scale projects that included multiple elements. In 2001 TivoliToo designed the Minneapolis Depot Water Park, from floor to ceiling. It took six months to come up with the illustration and design, including the gigantic steam engine, slides and the other water park elements.
In 2002, Great Wolf Lodge, which has grown to 10 locations around the country, was looking for themed "nature" bedrooms for kids. Time-intensive, hand-illustrated drawings were scanned and enlarged into prints for wallpapering the rooms. Orders kept coming in for indoor and outdoor play areas at malls and parks.
In 2003, Disney celebrated the 75th anniversary of Mickey Mouse. TivoliToo created 75 custom-designed six-foot-tall Mickeys painted to represent a variety of celebrities and athletes, including Kevin Garnett, Janet Jackson, Elton John, Andy Garcia, Ben Affleck and Regis Philbin. The Mickeys went on a two-year tour visiting 15 cities in the U.S.
Now that Nickleodeon Universe has arrived at the MOA, check out the gigantic Sponge Bobs and know they came to life just across the river in a shop in Mendota Heights.
The company now creates objects from ¼-inch to 60-feet in dimension. It is currently working on "Peace Doves" for the 60th anniversary of Israel’s nationhood, to be celebrated this month.
The Johnsons said they feel good about giving the artists stable jobs (there are 30-35 now).
"Our uniqueness is the diversification or breadth of our work, and offering to take it from start to finish," said Hart Johnson. "We have incredible, talented and diverse artists. It’s the talent of the team that allows us to be the company that we are." Ultimately, he added, the secret of the company’s survival for 28 years is "Randi’s inability to say ‘no’ and our ability to find a way to do it." |
