BYOBR (build your own balloon room)

Chris, my and my Mom in Creed's room at the Cleveland Museum of Art - I love that you can see my dad in the reflection on the window here.

On a recent visit to Cleveland, Chris and I caught Martin Creed's "Work No. 965: Half the air in a given space" in one of my favorite rooms of my favorite art museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art. The interactive exhibit - consisting of a giant room half-filled with thousands of deep purple balloons - was so much fun and such a unique experience, we decided to replicate the piece in a spare bedroom in our home in LA!

With help from LA Balloons and a few roommates and friends, we blew up 1300 blue balloons by Christmas morning. The rumors are true - helium is a rare element these days - but thankfully we only needed air in our balloons and thus rented an air-pump machine to assist our blow-up process.  I'd guess it took about 6 or so hours total for all the inflation.

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the view from outside our balloon room (not your average gallery space)

The results were spectacular, a soft ball-pit-sea of blue and white in an already colorful space. As waves of guests arrived at our home throughout the holiday week, we ushered them past the tapestry doorway and into our very own balloon room, where you could run around, create a whirl-pool affect, hide under the layers of latex, dance up a storm, and listen to the electric magic of balloons moving from motion to restfulness.

balloons in motion

After fully realizing the investment of time and money a balloon-room takes, and in an attempt to capture some of the magic of the space, we decided to double-up on the fun and shoot a music video. Filming in a sea of balloons comes with its very own challenges, but as I've been editing I am confident the work will have been worth it! More on the video when it is released later this year :)

Screenshot of me looking bitchy with my balloons!

We popped all the balloons a week later to make room for our new roommate's arrival, a process which was also very enjoyable and a task which was shared by the whole household - dogs included (highly supervised, of course). My gratitude goes out to Christopher, Robin, Emma, Dave, Adrian, Rachel, Sadie-dog and Penny-dog for their help and patience in making the balloon room possible!

popping in progress

I highly encourage you to check out the Cleveland Museum of Art if you are ever in town. Although Work No. 965 ended November 25th, CMA consistentently excites and challenges - and visit Martin Creed's website for more art and even some music from the prolific and inspiring artist.