Spontaneous Collaboration and Venus Progress

One of the things I love about my projects is the way people  just show up and join in. I seem to have this way of attracting really fun crowds. I'm not talking about projects like Balloon Manor that are designed with the masses in mind. I'm talking about things that were designed to be "small," like my ArtPrize project.

Anyone following this blog knows that I've been working on The Birth of Venus for ArtPrize. The idea was to do something that Kelly and I could work on without having to direct a few dozen people. We knew that a few other folks would join in. Cathy Adams, the person that first told me about ArtPrize was clearly going to play an active role. We weren't expecting Robbie Furman to show up for a day.  Sheldon Blake flew in from Florida just because he thought it would be fun to hang out and learn on the project.

The last two people to have joined us (so far) are Mark and Suzanne Vainner. They are the greatest example of what I love about so many artists that do community art. They're competing against us (except that we spent a fair amount of time talking about how none of us are in this for the competition) and yet, they just hung out with us and contributed.

At the end of a really fun first day, we have the backdrop for Venus hung, along with all of the framed prints.  Our gallery is set up.  Our balloons are organized.  Tomorrow morning we'll get the big tree from Botticelli's painting up.

A number of people have been asking about more photos, so it's great to finally be able to sit down and upload them.  The live camera should be up early in the morning so you'll be able to watch progress throughout the day. At least, that's the plan.  We'll make sure to tweet that as soon as we're set up for everyone to join us.