Setting up Stuffed Full on Governors Island for the Governors Ball in the rain. Tomorrow this inflatable sculpture will be on display during the music festival. During the window for installation the clouds opened up with a wet downpour. With a little work all set up nicely. I will also be storming around in two inflatable suits, You Wear What I Wear and Hello. Bye.

Hope to see you there and have a blast.

Santiago Esparza of The Detroit News came out to see the Detroit performance and followed along a bit down Woodward Avenue while Robin Buckson documented the event with her camera. Click the image to see a large image of the article and to read the text.

The Detroit News link:
http://www.detnews.com/article/20091128/METRO/911280331/1409/METRO/Pair-don-giant-inflated-suits-to-lighten-things-up-on-Woodward

After finding a parking space near Woodward and Warren Avenue, I unpacked two inflatable suits. In the morning Santiago Esparza of The Detroit News contacted me about coming to the performance with a photographer. I waited for him and Mary Beth Carolan to show up. Mary Beth saw some of the publicity for the Detroit performance and contacted me earlier in the month. She said that she was coming to the performance with some friends and was interested in wearing one of the suits.

Everyone arrived on time and bundled up against the chilly wind. I say chilly since at 36 degrees it was not really cold by Michigan standards. I inflated Hello. Bye. for Mary Beth to wear and I wore Your Wear What I Wear. We headed down the street bumping into fast food restaurants, banks, abandoned buildings and city buses. I really enjoyed the performance since I to not normally have two suits inflated at the same time.

The next performance is scheduled for December 4th in Chicago. It will start at 12:00 noon in Grant Park and then wander up and down Michigan Avenue. Hope to see you there.

I spoke with Jason Carr of the FOX 2 Detroit Morning show at the FOX 2 studios. The interview went fine except for the fact that large inflatable suits do not fit well inside television studios. The suits banged into the lighting rigs a bit, but no damage was done.

Getting the suits out and inflated before the performance got me pumped for what I knew was going to be a cold performance on the streets of Detroit. I stopped by a diner before that performance to grab a burger and to top off the air blower batteries. As I entered the building a woman exiting asked me if I was on the news that morning. I replied, “Yes, and I will be bouncing down the street in a few minutes.” That is the kind of accessibility and audience scope that I seek with my performances.

After a successful series of inflatable suit performances in central Michigan, I am expanding the list of cities to include Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit and St. Louis. Since it is getting colder up here I am planning to confront the weather head on to find out what happens. These performances will occur in the end of November and the beginning of December. Hello. Bye. and You Wear What I Wear will both be used during the performances.

Schedule:

Detroit – Friday, November 27th – 12:00 p.m.
Begins at Woodward and Warren Avenue and spreads out to the surrounding area

Chicago – Friday, December 4th – 12:00 p.m.
Begins in Grant Park and then heads down Michigan Avenue

Cincinnati – Friday, December 11th – 12:00 p.m.
Begins near Washington park and heads toward the river

St. Louis – Friday, December 18th – 12:00 p.m.
Begins under the Arch and heads into downtown

I wrapped up the central Michigan performance tour in Kalamazoo. Hello. Bye. took strong winds in stride and attracted the attention of a couple reporters. As I walked by the Kalamazoo Gazette building during my performance, two journalists from the Business Review came out to see what was going on. Candace Beeke wrote a piece on the West Side Story blog and mentions Super Mario Brothers, which is always cool.

I continued on my way after posing for a couple pictures. Toward the end of the performance the wind picked up and I began to head back to my car. The only problem was that in the midst of choosing a spontaneous route through the city, I did not remember precisely where I parked my car. As I wandered around the general area of where I figured my car was I bumped into Aaron Aupperlee of the Kalamazoo Gazette. He came over to ask what I was up to and asked me to pose for a couple pictures for a story he posted online.

It was great fun performing in Kalamazoo and it was nice to run into a couple members of the media along the way. There were smiles all around.

The rain stayed away for the performance in Jackson. I started in the mall parking lot and then headed down Michigan Avenue toward downtown. Along the way car horns kept pace with their always ambiguous messages. Since I performed during the lunch hour, many people were dining in storefront cafes. This provided ample opportunity to use my big yellow letters to say, “Hello.”, followed by smiles, an about face and a friendly, “Bye.”

The Battle Creek performance lost out to the rain on Friday. I rescheduled for the next day with decent weather, which ended up being Sunday.

What have I been doing in the studio during my residency? I made a new inflatable suit. This suit, Hello. Bye., sports big yellow letters and of course big red arrows. An inflatable suit must have lots of fun protrusions and this time it has arrows. The front of the suit greets pedestrians with the friendly greeting, “Hello.” with a period. The red arrow make sure that the message cannot be missed. After a smile is on their face and I am moving on, a smaller “Bye.”, also with a period, bids them farewell.

I put the suit through its paces and I look forward to the upcoming performances in Jackson and Kalamazoo.