This is the second in a series of posts about Sky Portal in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The official name of the balloon museum is the Anderson Abruzzo International Balloon Museum.  I don’t know exactly the partnership, but it is affiliated with the city; it’s also its own thing.  So I was commissioned by the city of Albuquerque to make this sculpture.  

But the museum–it’s about hot air ballooning and also any kind of lighter-than-air flight.  It’s a fascinating place.  It’s the history of lighter-than-air flight.  It’s been there since 2005.  And Anderson, Abruzzo–in ballooning circles, those are famous names.  They made the first trans-Atlantic balloon crossing in 1978.  It was on the cover of National Geographic and everything.  So they’re pretty pioneering balloonists.  And they started this museum.  And there it sits, it’s kind of an eccentric design, architecturally.  It kind of recalls shapes of balloons.

There wasn’t really art there.  I think now there are a couple of little sculptures, very small, on a pedestal.  But essentially there was no real outdoor permanent art there.  And they have this great landscape that they designed right there on the museum grounds, with space for doing demonstrations and everything.  So the idea behind it was that they wanted a large-scale piece of land art, so to speak, a piece of art that engaged the site, a focal point.  So I was really inspired, it seemed like a great project. 

The first thing I realized, as I started getting into it, was that the most inspiring thing, the most inspiring form, is the balloon.  The balloons are the thing.  I can’t really compete with the balloons.  Especially at a Fiesta time when you’re glued to the sky.  There’s just all these floating colors.  So why would you want to look at a piece of art?  I’d rather look at the balloons.  Those are the attraction.

But then the further I got into it, I started realizing that really the piece should be maybe a way of looking at the balloons.  Not trying to detract from them or compete with them or duplicate them or imitate them, but be a way that you could see them in a different light maybe.  And then the landscape as well.

Albuquerque, public art, sky portal