I spent an afternoon in my future neighborhood a while back, and encountered the Somerville ArtBeat festival by accident. Most of Davis Square was blocked off, and the streets were jam packed with food and craft vendors.
One jewelry booth really caught my eye, and only partly because I’d seen her work at the RISD Alumni Art Sale in previous years.
But I was most fascinated with this contraption:
The balloons had airtight zippers on one side, and when it was time to transition to the next occupant, they unzipped it and the whole thing would collapse, allowing one kid to climb out. Once the next kid was in, they zipped it back up and inflated it with an air compressor. The kids typically either spun the bubble with their feet like a hampster wheel, or — my personal favorite — could lie down in the perfectly spherical indentation made by weight of the bubble displacing the water below it. It was magical.
Somerville ArtBeat 2010
I spent an afternoon in my future neighborhood a while back, and encountered the Somerville ArtBeat festival by accident. Most of Davis Square was blocked off, and the streets were jam packed with food and craft vendors.
One jewelry booth really caught my eye, and only partly because I’d seen her work at the RISD Alumni Art Sale in previous years.
But I was most fascinated with this contraption:
The balloons had airtight zippers on one side, and when it was time to transition to the next occupant, they unzipped it and the whole thing would collapse, allowing one kid to climb out. Once the next kid was in, they zipped it back up and inflated it with an air compressor. The kids typically either spun the bubble with their feet like a hampster wheel, or — my personal favorite — could lie down in the perfectly spherical indentation made by weight of the bubble displacing the water below it. It was magical.