The Life of a Balloon

I was lucky enough to catch a few of the balloons through the entire process.

Balloons, Balloons, Everywhere.

So, I'm finally getting around to blogging about Mel Ziegler's Downtown Mixer project. The project was insane amounts of coordination, lots of rejection, exhausting hours, but ultimately I think an interesting social project, entertaining for both the volunteers and business people, and in the end a successful happening. In my mind the greatest part of the project was the process. For Mel, me, and the rest of our great volunteers there were hours upon hours of continual asking people to blow up a balloon and draw on it. Seems simple, doesn't it? Most people barely even broke stride as they zoomed by the table. But eventually you had to get over the constant rejection, and then you really appreciated the people who actually stopped and participated. And I even rejoiced in times when people came specifically to blow up a ballon, and made these great portraits. I think most people thought we were crazy, but we still had over 1600 people participate. That was amazing. Some buildings were friendlier than others (I won't name any names), there were definatley times of day that were more productive, and we could have used a few more volunteers, but after 3 solid days of collecting balloons we were faced with an entire room full of bags of balloons, and there was even more work ahead. We then had to attach pipe cleaners to every balloon in order to mount them to the blocks of wood that were their tiny pedestals. And then mix the colors together and transfer them back to the building lobbies to be installed. Carrying bags of balloons down the street on windy days in downtown Houston had to be some of my favorite moments from the week. Once the balloons were installed in all of the buildings, entire new headaches we never anticipated began to pop up. I won't go into it all, but let me just say, balloons do not like windows and heat. Though most balloons deflated within a week or two, amazingly, in the end, I finally had to remove balloons from the Continental building which were still inflated over a month later. And I think the happiest moment for me was chatting with the security guard there, who at first wasn't very cooperative with the project, but then began explaining the project to people in the building, and in the end was asking me when we were going to be back doing more art. That helped to make all the headaches worth it.
Finally, I would like to thank Mel's assistants Miranda, Myranda, and Lindsey who we couldnt have done the project without. Also, big props to my mom, who was like the balloon whisperer and could convince almost anyone to participate. And all the rest of our volunteers who made the project possible have my unending thanks. An insane amount of pictures of the project can be found at our website. Click here to see them.