Dragon week, NY Times, and other upcoming Airigami appearances
What could be better than being featured in the New York Times Style section? Maybe getting to do some pubic events again. Here’s a quick update on what we’ve been doing and what’s coming, including Dragon Week, Maker Faires, and balloon fashion.
The New York Times
Airigami is featured in The NY Times.
It was so much fun waking up this morning and reading an article by Mattie Kahn of the New York Times. A big thanks to Mattie for her enthusiasm regarding balloons.
Since space is always an issue (The Times is still a print publication) it’s never possible to have everything included in an article that we might want. We thought we’d add a couple of our own notes here that didn’t make the paper:
As you know, we go to great pains to compost and upcycle our balloons whenever feasible. Kelly’s gorgeous gold dress (below) was upcycled from previously enjoyed foils balloons. And while Tuftex Balloons, Anagram Balloons and Qualatex were given shout outs in the article, to our lovely friends at Gemar Balloons and Betallic please know you were included in the interview along with our company's environmental policies.
The Very Tall Tale of Jack and his Beanstalk (2014). Photo featured in The NY Times. Yep, even the grass is balloons. That beautiful lawn is made up of thousands of balloon dogs that were twisted by community members.
Balloon fashion: A dress from upcycled foil balloons
This piece was created by Kelly for the online Tw!st Convention's fashion invitational. This inflated foil dress was crafted from mostly up-cycled foil balloons from previous events!
DRESS: Kelly Cheatle
MODEL: Clotilde Ramos @mamitaa_1
HAIR & MAKE UP: Lisa McIntire
PHOTOGRAPHER: Larry Moss
Upcoming projects
It’s been quite a while since we’ve been able to do an installation in an accessible public location. At last, we have a couple coming up. First up, in celebration of National Library Week, the Rochester Public Library is hosting Dragon Week in Hacker Hall at the Rundel Building. Head over to the library during regular library hours for all sorts of activities, including making dragon eggs, playing Dungeons & Dragons, and of course, getting a peak at the dragon sculpture we’re building there. To get an idea of what’s coming, take a look at a couple of our dragons from the past.
Maker Faire Kuwait 2019 saw this dragon take flight.
This dragon from 2013 was built at the National Museum of Play in Rochester, NY before making it’s way down to the Brooklyn Children’s Museum. The dragon’s journey can be seen on an episode of Shipping Wars.
We’ll be having fun making dragons, and we don’t want to keep all the fun to ourselves. If you’re looking to get your hands on balloons to help build something huge, we have two opportunities to offer in April. We’ll be at Maker Faire Syracuse on April 2 where we’ll be inviting everyone to participate in the creation of an Airigami Bubble Mural™. On April 9, we’ll once again be asking for assistance in building a Bubble Mural at Maker Faire Lake County.
Young attendees of Maker Faire Lynchburg assemble a Bubble Mural of
Students at the Eastman School of Music created a Bubble Mural as part of a team building exercise at the start of school year.
Bubble Murals are designed to be built by community members, work groups, or others looking for a fun group activity. Let us know if you’d like to host one at your event.