The most stylish museum in the world, from the minds of the future: Where finance and art inspire. The incalculable style of Melody & Big G.
"You have to have the kind of personality that says, I've got an idea—and I want to see it be real." — G. Lucas
Being currently in the throngs of an Executive MBA pursuit and engaged in a Financial Management course, comes this week's Style.Section inspired by a band of three threads: Melody, George, and the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. Inspired by the WSJ's recent profile of Innovator Award Winners, Melody Hobson and George Lucas have taken on new titles: co-founders.
Any structure or experience with no corners is tasteful and a visual expose of intelligentsia, allowing the flow of ideas, energy, and life itself to move through space. According to WSJ, the first floor of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is just that and more. These two forces in my creative and business affairs have each sparked my curiosity in their respective fields. Though their style from the MET Gala captured my attention this year, it is their highly anticipated museum that is now capturing my heart.
Museums have been foundational bricks of my taste in art, history, and culture. The love started in DC, sitting on the sidewalks of Constitution Avenue watching parades with my family and later marching in them as a safety patrol in grade school, trombonist in middle school, and drum major in high school. Museums have guided the framing of culture while lived experience taught another.
When Kids Recognize the Future
From a vehicle traveling 60mph on the 10 freeway in South LA, my kids ask, "Is the museum done yet?" They inquire about the gleaming building with me constantly, like it's my own and I'm building it. Maybe not this museum, but one day, like George and Melody, my family's ambition is to build a museum that brings the world together in one place—because I know the impact they can have.
The data points to broader societal impacts of museums, with some researchers noting that museums are seen as more trustworthy, "ranking second only to friends and family." This puts these cultural institutions above "researchers and scientists, NGOs, news organizations, the government, and social media," according to the American Alliance of Museums.
Melody and George are now more than just stewards of capital and our imaginations. With the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, they are now stalwarts of public trust, a role the couple is poised to embrace in a pensive manner. Melody Hobson, one of the most well-respected figures across industries, shares with the WSJ that, "We've said that we're holding society's money that we fully intend to give back." Always the steward of capital, she steps in lockstep with her husband on a vision so grand, it will literally change the world.
Washington, DC's Smithsonian museums have sincerely had their run. The MET, of course—a stalwart of history and style—will continue to reign. But oh my, this museum from the mind that "saw into the future…executed it," says Martin Scorsese, will be nothing short of a theatrical full sensory experience. This work of galactic art will live well beyond my children who watched the museum being built.
And yet, though I thought spaceship, the WSJ reveals that architect Ma Yansong says he had tree canopies and mysterious clouds in mind for the building's shape to beckon people inside. In reflection, the shape in person and from a distance can confirm—it beckons even the youngest natural eye of my daughter at age 6. Kids can very well recognize the future when they see it.
Style That Endures
Melody Hobson, an entrepreneur and steward of capital for thousands of individuals, corporations, city sports teams and more, is one of the most stylish in this known universe. My man George, he's stylish too in an understated nod to his broader creativity. Yet the cool thing about this couple is not necessarily their clothes that represent them, but what they create that endures.
Portfolios, team identities, "out of this worlds," genuine connections and friendships, projects—all speak to their level of taste and what they believe. What are our core decisions, intentions, and projects sharing about who we are, and how well can they endure?
Galaxies Far, Far Away From Where They Started
The echoes of their careers—George's and Melody's—are journeys in galaxies far, far, far away from where they started and are today, standing in front of the massive visual odyssey that is the LMONA (I'm coining this term), a little under a "light year" away from the University of Southern California. Each of them faced opposition in multiple chapters of their lives and yet prevailed.
Studios were hesitant about Lucas' scripts after his first film debut. "Light sabers," "the Force," "good and evil archetypes"—it sounds trivial now to think these were not great ideas at first pitch. But unique to visionaries and their style of communication, it turns out they need collaborators. Oh, I forgot—his ideas also sounded too expensive.
Could you imagine Seth Rogen listening to George Lucas' pitch in the next season of The Studio? Greenlights I'm sure from the jump. But for George, this was the mid-70s, and for some, the future had only been seen in written form. George's dilemma reveals the essence of collaboration: opposing forces (with purpose) that complement. Ralph McQuarrie, a technical illustrator for Boeing, gave shape to the world within George's brain and the world he penned on the page. The rest is a five-decade-long career and $4 billion sale of Lucasfilm to Disney that has proven to be just the prequel of his legacy.
Patient Capital Pays Dividends
Melody, a respected voice and in her own right a curator of personal experience and culture, has built empires with an eye for value and long-term impact within short-term market experiences. Melody earned her grit well before serving as co-CEO of Ariel Investments, the largest minority-owned investment firm with $13 billion in investments under management.
The "slow and steady wins the race" philosophy has yielded results that have stood the test of the market. Is not the market time itself? Patient capital pays dividends. Yet this philosophy is what has molded Melody into a titan of industry. This style of investing led her to wait patiently to enter sports at the right time, starting with the NFL's Denver Broncos investment, and then leading a fund dedicated to the advancement of women's sports—"Project Level" Women's Sports Investment Fund, with Commanders' C-Suite alum Jason Wright serving as Managing Partner and Head of Investments.
Her leadership style has earned her board seats and the ears of other titans, but IMO, nothing may compare to the heart she captured of the nation's soon-to-be or already national treasure, George Lucas. But for him, in his new life as museum co-founder, he notes: "A museum is harder than making movies." Thankfully, Melody is gleefully there by his side to let the world glimpse his mind until LMONA opens.
The Force of Collaboration
The audacious effort that is LMONA may have proved impossible were it not for George's most important collaborator: his wife, his force of reason. WSJ's profile reveals why collaboration is important to innovators. You do not innovate until you execute, and you do not execute until you effectively collaborate. The couple's career, work, and success reveal that collaboration is the foundation, but like in all worlds, near and far, it all starts and ends with the driving force of family, legacy, and vision.
Look no further than Star Wars itself—family drove the narrative. I mean wow, imagine being a fan and hearing Darth Vader say "Luke, I am your father" for the first time…mind blown. Family: the most dynamic feature of life, the greatest collaboration that brings forth beauty capable of growing from ashes or lush greenery.
But from the moment the first frame was shot for the original trilogy, Lucas was fraught with challenges. From skeptical studio executives to a struggling crew on the first film, Lucas remained the fearless leader who financed the second film, The Empire Strikes Back, with his own money. Over budget and behind schedule, sitting in the driver's seat of this unprecedented vision, Lucas rallied—bearing the weight of both financial and creative burdens—and pushed the film to the finish line, all while keeping that legendary plot twist tightly under wraps.
In this new episode of his life, there are no secrets about the LA monument floating in the sky. With a career and wealth built over nearly two generations, only a titan like Melody could help George steward the proportions of building a cultural empire that will live well into the next generation.
Shaped by Family, Driven by Purpose
Both Melody and George emerged from family experiences that shaped their destinies. Melody's life was influenced by family and the grit of her mother and Chicago. George's ideas were transformed through a three-month recovery from being broadsided in a car accident before graduation—an event that led him to pursue art school, even as his parents refused to pay for it. From those origins to this moment, their journey stands as testament to the power of collaboration, resilience, and the forces that shape us.
Lucas, the ever artist, is a G. And Georges have a way about themselves. When G. Lucas is criticized that the museum is a shrine to himself, he responds: "I'm making a museum for what I call the orphaned arts." I cannot personally argue with that ambition.
His stance for the underrepresented may very well align with that of Thelma Golden, director of the Studio Museum of Harlem, who will be celebrating the opening of their new building in less than 30 days. A savant of broader culture, Golden unrelentingly gives voice to emerging talents from all walks of life and the galaxy that is Harlem. As some art in the collection at LMONA was literally considered trash by some accounts, Lucas stands up for the collection and what the museum's ambition is about—"the art people respond to in the real world."
As plans in San Francisco and Chicago folded, LA became the path. Reflecting on Melody's role in securing Los Angeles as the museum's home, the former mayor recalls: "It wasn't just nuts and bolts. She had a very gentle touch with a very strong message."
When Obstacles Become Opportunities
Oh my, how obstacles can become opportunities. George's early savviness—meticulously planning the balance of scenes in The Empire Strikes Back down to each frame at $20,000 apiece—helped him control costs and deliver returns to his primary investors at the time: himself and the banks that lent the money. Though this approach went against his father's early wisdom to never borrow money, it provided dividends in the long term.
It is this disciplined stewardship, combined with his deep love for his art and the future of filmmaking, that was built at Lucasfilm frame by frame, movie by movie. Perhaps it was precisely this vision—a creative empire built on calculated risks and unwavering belief—that drew a financial artist and galaxy in her own right into his orbit. Two forces, bound by shared values of purposed capital, long-term thinking, and the courage to build legacies that transcend a single lifetime.
A More Stylish Future
So when it comes to the beauty of two lives that emerged through triumph to steward the finances to complete such a genuine work of art and build a literal legacy—indeed, the Smithsonian is loved, but Star Wars, its themes and ideas, are enshrined for the enjoyment of connection. Connection to our higher and/or inner selves.
To live in a more beautiful world filled with real-life experience as we get deeper into the universe of apps that are our phones, I would like to thank one of my favorite couples for giving us—my wife and our kids—something to look forward to: a more stylish future designed from the inside out.
May the force of love and labor be with us all until we experience the LMONA for ourselves.
"George told me years ago there's nothing harder than a blank page," Hobson says. "We're doing a blank-page version of a museum. And it's reminiscent of all the hard things we both have ever done. That part feels uncomfortably familiar." — Melody Hobson, WSJ
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