The new studio

The studio is almost ready! August 6 is going to be our Grand Opening. I’ve written a couple of times recently about my excitement at moving into a new studio space surrounded by other artists. Well, the time has come for all of you to show up now and visit. If you’re in Rochester on August 6, 2010 from 6:00 – 9:00 PM, we’re hoping you’ll take the time to stop in, eat some food and drink some wine. Please RSVP so we can toss your name into the hat for door prizes that night.

A few people have already seen the studio in a not-quite-finished form. We had a sort of pre-grand opening balloon jam a few weeks ago. Thanks to all of the balloon artists that attended. The prize for greatest distance traveled to attend goes to Renate McIntosh and her kids, traveling from DE. (Well, they were on the road anyway, but it’s fun to think they came just for the jam.)

The White House – Two years in a row

Balloon Crew at the White House - July 4, 2010

For the second year in a row (my third time), I was invited to be part of a team entertaining guests at the White House on July 4. The guests included honored members of the military and their families. The team I was on consisted this year of Todd Neufeld, Alberto Nava, Brian Asman, Laura Caldwell, John Reid, Robbie Furman and Lily Hayes. At something like 98 degrees on the South Lawn, this wasn’t exactly an easy gig, but it’s always fun being surrounded by smiling folks having a great time. The official White House video of the event even includes a shot of Laura twisting (58 seconds in).

Some history

A couple weeks ago I opened my mailbox and found a copy of the latest issue of Cabinet Magazine. This art and culture quarterly is absolutely beautiful and fun to read. This issue contains an article by Jonathan Allen devoted to balloons as an artistic medium. I’m thrilled that my work is featured prominently in the article, but I’ll get to that part later. It was his mention of the “balloon world’s Woodstock” (aka TJam 1999) in Austin, Texas that struck me as a such a timely reference. I actually read the article while on my way to teach as part of the current incarnation of that event: TJam on the Road. Reading his article made me want to share some of my memories.

TJam 1999 banquet

Jonathan does a great job of citing key points in the history of balloon art. Those interested should read his article in Cabinet. I’ll just go into more of a personal bit for me. In 1991, the community that turned into BalloonHQ.com was formed. Online communities were a new concept. Very quickly, there were discussions about how the members of this community could gather and actually meet face to face. At the time, Internet access was limited to mostly big academic institutions and a few very large companies. That meant that the majority of our members were college students. This isn’t a demographic that typically has money to spend on hotel meeting rooms or, for that matter, ANY hotel rooms.

The conversation about meeting went on for a few years. Some of us managed to meet in small groups to jam with balloons. Balloon jams are, like the jams of jazz musicians, simply a gathering in which a few people experiment with their art in a collaborative fashion. In 1998, Tom Myers, then owner of T Myers Magic, proposed a mega jam. He would host it in Austin. He would invite everyone in the balloon world to his home for T & Jam. We’d finally all meet.  It would be cheap, to satisfy the wants of the poor students. (Many of the college students in the early discussions were successfully avoiding the real world by now attending grad school, so cheap was still important.) It would be our version of Woodstock.

TJam became a bi-annual convention for balloon artists and entertainers. Another convention, Twist & Shout, likewise happened bi-annually, alternating years with TJam until Tom decided to go a different way and replace the massive convention with TJam on the Road – a traveling convention/jam that made stops in cities around the US. Twist & Shout continued as a large gathering and became an annual event to fill the void left by TJam.

Tom retired from the business and sold T Myers Magic a few years ago. TJam on the Road went away when Tom did and was sorely missed by many. The new owners, Gus and Bettina Davis, received requests regularly to bring it back. This year they have. With the help of artist Robbie Furman and a collection of other teachers, the tour is back. Robbie is teaching and jamming in 40 cities in the continental US throughout the summer, accompanied by Italian artist Alberto Nava. A handful of other balloon industry celebrity artists are making guest appearances in different cities and offering full days of classes and more jamming.

I was honored to be part of the tour. I just completed two days of teaching in Fort Lee, NJ and Plymouth, MA. I saw a lot of old friends and met many new ones. I wish Robbie, Alberto, and all the other artists taking part a lot of fun and success on the rest of the summer tour and I encourage other artists to check out the remaining dates and join them if you can. I can’t wait for TJam to stop in Rochester on August 27. The special guest artist for the tour stop here will be Don Caldwell. A meeting room is already booked for it, but we’ve been talking to Robbie about changing things up and hosting the stop in the new studio.  We’ll keep you posted on that.

Back to Cabinet

OK. I admit it. I have a big ego.  It comes with the job. I get in front of people all the time and I have to like hearing myself talk or I wouldn’t be able to cut it in this line of work. But more than that, I wait impatiently to read the next article that mentions my name. Knowing this article would include my work made me really happy. Then, seeing who else appeared in the article made me happier still. It was great seeing friends like Ralph Dewey mentioned, but the best part was that Ralph and I were compared to Leonardo Da Vinci and Sandro Botticelli. Now that was cool!

Airigami’s new home

Let’s begin on the local front. I mentioned last month that Airigami was moving into a studio in the Hungerford Building in downtown Rochester. We have moved in. The setting up of the new place is going a lot slower than I had hoped. Kelly and I wanted to focus on the move, but there’s been more than enough work to keep us busy without the distraction of fixing up the office. That’s made it rather impossible to just stop and play in our new space. On a positive note, the new studio does offer us all of the space we need to get things done. One thing we’ve already managed to do, even without all the fixtures in place, is shoot some video for some upcoming instructional materials we’ll be putting out. Prior to this, we simply didn’t have enough space to point a camera and have a clean shot of anything.

In my last blog post, I babbled excitedly about being amidst other artists. My excitement about that hasn’t changed. The building has a rather active group of creative individuals, called the Hungerford Urban Artists. I’ve now had a chance to meet a number of them. When I have some time, I expect I’ll be writing about some of their work. One of the best parts of this group is the monthly event they put on.  The first Friday every month brings an open house at the Hungerford. Many artists take part. Doors are open. Munchies can be found all over. Last month, there was tons of conversation. We were barely in the building and hadn’t expected to open our doors.  We didn’t feel we had anything to show yet. Our walls are still bare, even now, a couple weeks later. Still, we were inundated with questions about what we do. Other artists from the building, along with many guests from outside came to hang out and see anything we could show. We were able to quickly set up a monitor with some video of our interesting projects, and some of the gallery pieces we’ve made ended up leaning against walls where it was at least visible. Despite our ragged appearance, we seem to have even made a sale.

In the future, we hope to build a sculpture during each First Friday event. That is, starting in August. We thought we’d be ready for everyone to show up on July 2, but that was before we found out we’d be out of town. But that, in itself, is a story. Of course, you don’t have to wait for First Friday to come around if you want to visit and check out the artwork and books we have for sale. Just give us a call if you want to stop by. You can also preview some of what we have in the Airigami web store.

The summer is looking to be busy

So, why won’t we be available for the July First Friday? For the second year in a row, I’ve been asked, along with a small team of other artists, to entertain invited guests to the White House Independence Day celebration. Last year, a group of us, including Todd Neufeld and Buster Balloon, had an opportunity to install a giant American flag on the White House lawn. This year, our focus will be strolling and entertaining the crowd. Our pieces may be smaller, but we plan on making just as large an impact on the event. Hopefully we’ll be able to avoid the very confusing lost gun incident from last year. While this is my second July 4th event at the White House, it’s the third White House event I’m taking part in. There have been great stories to share from each, so I’m looking forward to this year’s event and whatever will come out of it.

Upon returning home, we’ll have to start planning the pieces we’ll be making for the Rochester PRIDE parade on July 17. Details still have to be worked out, but right now we’re talking about creating costumes that reflect the pride and history of the LGBT community in this region. This should be a really fun event to take part in. Of course, if that doesn’t already sound like a big enough project to keep us busy, we also offered to assist with a  sculpture for the Hunter Resch Foundation on the same day.

Upcoming dates

Don’t forget to look for interesting events on the Airigami calendar. Here are the next few events coming up.

• June 28 – Larry Moss and Robbie Furman teach at TJam on the Road in Fort Lee, NJ.
• June 29 – Larry and Robbie teach at TJam on the Road in Plymouth, MA. Details and registration at TMyers.com
• July 4 – Larry and Kelly meet up with Todd Neufeld, Laura Caldwell, and John Reid to entertain on the White House lawn.
• July 17 – Costumes made by Larry and Kelly will be worn in the Rochester PRIDE parade.
• July 17 – A sculpture made by Larry and Kelly will appear at a fundraiser for the Hunter Resch Foundation.
• August 6 – First Friday at the Hungerford. The studio will be open for visitors.

One of the things I dug up was a video that aired on Fuji Television in japan in December 1998.  The video has actually been online all this time.  But as Internet connection speeds and monitor resolutions have increased, the thumbnail-sized video I had online looks a little silly now. So, as a fun look back at what large scale balloon projects used to look like, here it is at a larger, more visible scale.

The samurai and demon in this video was my first mega huge balloon project. It was built in Tokyo with a crew combining Japanese celebrities and a television stage crew. This opened the door to my large sculptures as community and team building projects. I didn’t speak the language of my crew, but we were able to communicate through art and produced something absolutely amazing. My work style has changed immensely in the years since this. I learned a lot on this project that I’ve been able to teach everywhere I’ve been in the world. Notice the drama in the build. You don’t need to speak Japanese to catch all of it in this video. Some projects these days are just as stressful when there are serious time constraints, but this was truly an example of learning on the job. It turned out that some of the techniques I intended to use just didn’t translate to the larger scale we had to work at.  I had become accustomed to building sculptures using a few hundred balloons.  This one required 15,000.

Promotion Marketing Association’s Blur Conference

Concept sketch for the cash register to be built at the PMA conference in Chicago March 23-24.

In addition to the book project, I do have another smaller installation I’ve been planning. I’m off to Chicago next week to create a giant antique cash register for the Promotion Marketing Association.  At first, I have to admit, I wondered how I was going to make a fifteen foot cash register exciting.  But after a bit of playing with it, Kelly and I came up with a plan that I can’t wait to put in place.  This thing will be a blast. I can’t wait to see conference attendees taking turns standing inside the register for photos.

Elastic Park voting and the Pepsi Refresh project

Thanks to everyone that’s been supporting us on the quest for a Pepsi Refresh grant. Over 10,000 people have viewed the Elastic Park video in the last month and a half. I can only imagine how many votes that’s translated into. As promised, I haven’t been pestering everyone about continuing to vote.  But we can still use your help.  You can vote for us daily to help us get the $50,000 grant needed to make Elastic Park a reality. If you do want daily reminders from us to vote, feel free to sign up for them. We’re making those reminders as fun as we can by including jokes, pictures and other fun items related to dinosaurs. If you want to know what fun facts you’ve missed over the last couple of weeks, you can find everything we’ve sent out on the Elastic Park blog.

A concept drawing of a snowman snowball fight

It’s been an interesting year.  I participated in a couple of fashion shows, completed the Fine Art Masterworks series I had been working on with the creation of Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus. and I spoke at TEDxRochester about large scale projects and where I hope to go with them in the future.

It’s time for the last Airigami project of 2009, and I’m excited that it’s going to be a public project.  It will be fairly small scale compared to some of the others, and that means the focus this time around will be on interacting with the crowd.  If you’re in Rochester, NY, stop by the Riverside Convention Center between 6:30 and 9:30 PM on New Year’s Eve. During that time, I’ll be building a sculpture with your suggestions. I have a plan and there are pieces I’ll definitely do, but the overall piece will change, based on feedback from the crowd. So Start thinking now about what you’d put into a snowman snowball fight.

If you can’t make it on New Year’s Eve, don’t worry.  We’ll have plenty more in store for 2010, from school assembly programs to more large scale projects. We’ve been booking private events as well. And no promises yet, but my goal is to bring Balloon Manor and Elastic Park back.  So many people wrote to me this year asking for them that I know it’s worth the effort.

Kelly's proposed flying cupcake sculpture.

A couple weeks ago, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) , announced a project to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Internet. And they’re using balloons to do it.

To mark the 40th anniversary of the Internet, DARPA has announced the DARPA Network Challenge, a competition that will explore the role the Internet and social networking plays in the timely communication, wide area team-building and urgent mobilization required to solve broad scope, time-critical problems.

The challenge is to be the first to submit the locations of ten moored, 8 foot, red weather balloons located at ten fixed locations in the continental United States. Balloons will be in readily accessible locations and visible from nearby roadways.  (from http://networkchallenge.darpa.mil/)

Almost 18 years ago, I started an online community, BalloonHQ, that unites thousands of balloon artists from around the world. These days, the projects that get most of my attention are those that involve large communities in giant, interactive sculptures. How could I ignore this challenge created by DARPA? There’s no way a single person can possibly find ten weather balloons placed around the continental US without the help of many others. Upon hearing about the project, I posted a note on BalloonHQ.com asking for support to pull this off.  And now that DARPA has clarified some of the details of the challenge (DARPA network challenge FAQ), I’m turning to all of you that read my blog for assistance.

What do you need to do to participate?

This is easy. There’s no way to know where the red balloons will be.  There may be one in your city, but you can’t really plan for it.  All you can do is keep your eyes open on December 5, 2009.  If you see one, you can report it back to me. The balloons will only be available for a maximum of nine hours that day, weather permitting. The balloons may be released a day later if weather or some other interference is encountered.

All official network challenge balloons will be accompanied by officials with credentials that can verify that the balloon is part of the challenge. All of the balloons will also be in places that are easily accessible.  An exact location is needed to identify the balloon. If you see one, jot down GPS coordinates or an address, or a cross street, or something that gets us coordinates within one arc minute of the balloon’s location.

Why should you help?

This should be a fun experiment. It will require the attentiveness of a lot of people and therefore a lot of people should be able to enjoy the fruits of a completed project. DARPA is offering a $40,000 prize to the first individual that reports the locations of all the balloons (or the largest number of them). The money should go toward a community project that everyone can enjoy. It should be a project in the spirit of the challenge. It should unite people across the country, celebrating the Internet, social media, and balloon art. Kelly Cheatle proposed a flying birthday cupcake made of balloons. I’m all for that. The $40K will go to covering the cost of creating the sculpture and housing the participating artists in the project. A good example of the project I have in mind would be the Fantastic Flying Octopus from a few years ago (as seen in the video below).

Let’s give this a shot and see if we can win this challenge. It’s not the winning that’s important. It’s doing something cool with the award that everyone can enjoy. Please help make this happen.

There's so much to think about when attending a TED conference.

TEDxRochester 2009 has come and gone. It was a huge honor to be invited to be a presenter.  I’ve been downloading TED Talk podcasts for a while now. I frequently find myself excitedly sharing some random bit of information I learned from the latest talk I had on my iPod. Now, I was given a chance to present.  I’ve shared a stage with many different people, but this was the first time I was on a stage with presenters as varied as a chemist and museum curators.

With each talk, my mind wandered into ways I may be able to collaborate on projects with each speaker. After all, TED is about sharing, learning, crossing disciplines, and developing new directions for advancement. I couldn’t help but wonder how I could combine the dance and movement taught by Thomas Warfield with balloon puppetry, or how my form of play fits with that of Scott Eberle’s at the Strong National Museum of Play. I thought about how the community building stuff I’ve done with my balloons would fit with the work of life coach Luis Martinez. And I couldn’t help but wonder if Todd Krauss’s work with nanotechnology held the answer to the question of how to keep a balloon inflated indefinitely. (I also wondered for a bit if I’d actually want to see a balloon last forever.)

Thanks to Tony Karakashian, Amanda Doherty, and Gary Jacobs for putting on the event. I couldn’t help but notice the way they each answered the question of, “will you do this again?” Each gave a very definite “yes.” But they had that look in their eyes that said they knew they must be crazy for wanting to do it, but that they felt a definite need to keep this going.  It’s a lot of work, and they directed the focus to their presenters, so they got little attention for their effort. I hope everyone attending took the time to learn something about the people behind the event.

This undersea sculpture was part of Balloons Around the World and was on display at Barnes & Noble in Pittsford, NY. Participants in this project included Larry Moss, Kelly Cheatle, Karyn Dolan, Sheryl Watts, Amy John, Mary Ann Jakubowicz, Rose Hasan, Tim Bourke, Lois Sprague, Brent Chmura, John Barthelmes.

Before going to ArtPrize, I was asked what I’d do if I won.  I answered that I’d take a day off. Whether I won or not, I was fairly certain that  I’d have more than a few projects to work on as soon as I returned home, and more than a day off wasn’t going to happen.  Sure enough, by the time I settled in after the trip, the list of things I was already looking at doing was too long to manage, and since I didn’t win, I couldn’t hire staff to do it all for me. Well, I’ve been back for a couple weeks now, the list keeps growing, and I’ve been bad about updating the blog with recent happenings. So here are just a couple of quick notes.

Balloons Around the World just took place last week. This is the annual event where artists in different cities around the globe join in just for the sake of sharing the fun and wonder of balloons. The crew that was working with me in Rochester was fantastic. Everyone just dove in to the undersea project. I was grateful for all of their help, and as I looked at them, all I could think was, “with friends like these, who needs anemones?”

Balloon Engineer just went on sale at B&N. Larry's newest book, included in a kit with a pump and balloons, has instructions for ten famous landmarks, from Niagara Falls to the Great Sphinx.

What makes Balloons Around the World exciting for me is the interaction with the community. While we don’t get to build Balloon Manor  this year, BATW was still a way to do something in the local community that brought a number of artists and community members together. Anyone that knows me is familiar with my passion for community projects. These projects provide a way to share my art with a wide audience. They give me a way to see people that don’t otherwise think of themselves as artists get excited about art. They get people working together doing something they’ve never done before. Of course, I’m always looks for ways to take that into other communities.

With that interest in community art, I was thrilled to get an invitation to speak at TEDxRochester on the subject of community art. For those unfamiliar with TED, it’s an organization devoted to “Ideas worth spreading.” From conferences to downloadable talks, TED is about sharing ideas. The ideas don’t have to be limited to any particular area and talks aren’t meant to be just directed at any specific audience. The folks at TED have now made it possible for others to offer smaller, local, TED-like conferences, called “TEDx”. It may not be quite the same as the official TED conference, but it will be fun.  I’m excited about giving a TED Talk.

Random notes:

My work was recently featured in an article in The Wall Street Journal.

Mona T-shirt (front)

In a recent post to this blog, I mentioned a quote that I found about my work. I thought the quote was funny and needed to be shared, so I posted a phony T-shirt containing it.  To my surprise, a number of people wrote in asking if they could buy the shirt.  Not wanting to disappoint, I went ahead and made shirts which a number of people wore around Grand Rapids during ArtPrize.  I took it a bit further and made it a more artsy shirt. The quote, “Larry Moss is a hack. I see no dachshunds”  is found on the back. The front contains my rendition of the Mona Lisa. The shirt is available from the Airigami gift shop until I run out of them.

ArtPrize voter registration has begun. Voters will have an opportunity to vote “up” or “down” on any entry. You can read about the “up” and “down” votes on the ArtPrize site. The gist of it is that a “down” vote, while not being included in a piece’s total votes and therefore not affecting its chance of winning or losing, may help determine how controversial a work is. As I read that explanation, I wondered what sort of controversy they expected. Being the sort of person to be egosurfing, you can imagine that I found a way to identify myself as a “controversial” artist. I’ll find a way to place myself in the spotlight any way I can. Why can’t there be controversy over my work?

I recently wrote about  how my work is often considered something that is “like art“. While I assume rob511’s comment was tongue in cheek (at least, that’s how I read it), it sums up an attitude that is common about balloons and the art created with balloons. That is, balloons should be used to make dogs and cats. That feeling about balloons has, at times, caused trouble for me.  I haven’t been able to get funded by grants in some situations because I’m not creating art, according to some funding organizations. But could this really be the sort of controversy that ArtPrize organizers had in mind?  Quite possibly yes, if Facebook discussions are to be taken seriously.

Every week, ArtPrize hosts an artist chat on its Facebook page. The artist selected for the chat is chosen by Facebook members that are fans of ArtPrize. Any fan can simply chime in with their vote for someone that they’d like to learn more about. The last couple weeks were interesting. I came in a close second last week to Matthew Stork, another artist whose work I find quite interesting. (It’s really hard to be disappointed about not being selected when there are so many interesting artists out there.) One ArtPrize fan posted in great frustration that so many “clowns” were voting for me. She seemed to be one of those people that only associates balloons with clowns. Sure there are a lot of clowns among my supporters. Likewise, some of my favorite entertainers are clowns. Many clowns do use balloons. And clowning is something I did in the past. But to suggest that only clowns are interested in my work, or that clowns being interested in my art somehow makes my art less valid is a little disturbing. I wonder if any of these concerns will come up this week now that I’ve been selected for the final artist chat.

I’ve drawn, painted, blown glass, folded paper, created digital artwork and played with a variety of other media. I’ve always returned to balloons as my primary medium. I like the fact that balloons are so accessible to everyone. I’ve learned to create with balloons in ways that I haven’t been able to with other materials. Some people will always see a balloon as just a child’s toy. I don’t need to change their minds. I’ll keep sharing my work and teaching my art to people that are as fascinated by my medium as I am.

If you’re in or have reason to visit the Grand Rapids area, I’d love for you to come and visit my work at the Furniture Campus Building (560 Fifth Street NW, Grand Rapids, MI 49504). Make sure you register to vote while you’re in Grand Rapids. You can vote when you get home, but you have to register at an official voter registration location in the city for your vote to be counted. I’ll be building the sculpture September 20-23. Stop in and watch the construction. There will also be an opening reception and artist demos in the building. Make sure to visit my calendar to see when I’ll be on site for details of those events. There’s still room in the class I’m teaching on September 23. Please make sure to let me know if you’re interested.

It is never more obvious to me that I work in a peculiar medium than when I hear the words, “Wow! It’s just like art!” The implication, of course, is that it’s not ACTUALLY art.  It’s only LIKE art. This begs the question, “What is art?”  Should the choice of medium have an impact on the definition of a work? Is the permanence of the creation relevant? Does someone have to use the title “artist” in order to create something that we call “art”?

This discussion of what constitutes art has been going on (and will no doubt continue) for centuries. In my humble opinion, however, any inspired creation should be looked at as art. It can be as intangible as a story told aloud, as temporary as a culinary dish, as “permanent” as a marble sculpture, or as functional as a machine. Most importantly, though, art generates an emotional response from its audience. It would seem, therefore, that almost any creation can then be classified as art. Likewise, any medium that can be used for creation should be considered a valid medium for art.

And yet sculpture created with balloons — the medium I’ve chosen to use — gets classified as “like art”. I’ve decided to play with that and enjoy that odd place. I’ve come to the conclusion that the only way I’m going to find my work on walls alongside the great masters is to recreate the works of the great masters myself and place my own work between them. Along the way I want to challenge people’s preconceived notions of what art is. I want to make that art accessible to everyone. To that end, I have studied some of the most recognized pieces of art of the last few centuries and tried to capture the elements that make them great. I am participating in ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, Michigan to show off this work and hope others will visit my work there to further explore these ideas.

I won’t be drawing or painting with pen, pencil or paintbrush like the masters I’m emulating in this exhibit. Instead, I’ll inflate and form balloons into the complex masterpieces that are familiar to so many people. Art created with balloons certainly won’t have the longevity of the 16,000-year-old paintings found in the Lascaux caves in France, but it will make someone smile.  Now, that’s art.

ArtPrize is an international Art Competition taking place September 23 – October 10, 2009 in Grand Rapids, MI. Larry Moss’s work, consisting of a series of recreations/reinterpretations of famous masterpieces will feature Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus as its centerpiece. It will be on display at the Furniture Campus Building, 560 Fifth Street NW, Grand Rapids, MI 49504. Construction will begin September 21. Thanks to Paula Scott Unlimited and the Furniture Campus Building for hosting this Airigami work.