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106 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 5.15
Meet Louisville's balloon king — and jester.
Air PowerBy Ashlie StevensPhoto by Aaron Kingsbury
A
METHODM
Y
burly, 6-foot-5 man in a worn gray
sweatshirt plops a black garbage bag onto
a table at Heine Brothers’. From the bag,
he pulls out a bulbous fgure and sets it
upright. Balloon Elmo, with Sharpie eyes and smile.
Gilbert Addams has been a balloon artist for
14 years. “My wife and I couldn’t have kids, and I
started this because I wanted kids in my life,” the
49-year-old says. He describes his own father as a
“child magnet,” a man who, at various times in St.
Louis, owned an ice cream truck, roller rink and
candy store and even bought a school building
(and accompanying playground) destined for
demolition. Addams originally wanted to be a
roller-skating clown, but his height and bellowing
voice frightened kids. “I’d skate up and there’d
be a puddle where the kid was standing,” he says.
Instead, Addams joined the Fellowship of Christian
Magicians. He does birthday parties, youth-group
events and a weekly show for the “disabilities
ministry” at Southeast Christian Church, where he
works as a groundskeeper. He also performs every
Tuesday night at the Goose Creek Diner. Addams
twists balloons into rabbits, mice, fshing poles with
fsh attached, aliens, swords, serpents, Jesus. He
uses “high-quality” balloons (“You don’t want a kid’s
balloon popping in their face”) that he buys from “a
very specifc vendor in Texas. That’s kind of a secret,
though.” Any tips for amateurs? For a balloon dog,
infate until two inches on the end remain. “You
have to leave the puppy a nose,” he says.
“I have really strong lungs — all balloon artists
do,” Addams adds. “One time I had a friend who
went for surgery and didn’t need to be on a
ventilator because his lungs were so strong from
blowing up balloons.”
Over the next several months we’ll
be checking in with the Speed
Art Museum, in anticipation of its
scheduled reopening next March
after completing a $50-million
expansion/renovation.
Since construction began in
September 2012, Louisvillians
haven’t been able to see, for exam-
ple, Yinka Shonibare’s “Three
Graces” from 2001, fgures based
on a photo of three women in
Edwardian dress and made from a
colorful printed cloth called Dutch
wax. “They don’t have heads —
which makes them mysterious —
but they do have expressive hands
or poses,” says Miranda Lash, the
Speed’s curator of contemporary
art, which will be displayed on the
second foor of the new North
Building. “He’s an interesting
artist in that he wants to call
attention to the mixing of cultures
as a result of the European coloni-
zation of Africa. He’s not coming
out and making a statement about
colonization, but he is saying that
it happened and now we have to
deal with its aftermath.”
Speed
Round