Daemen University - Summit Yearbook (Amherst, NY)

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Up, Up, and Away People coming into the Duns Scotus Exhibition Area the morning of November 2 rubbed their eyes with disbelief. The place was awash in shades of red. An entire room built of red balloons was taking shape under the fingers of the 26 mem- bers of Mr. Arnold’s morning and afternoon sculpture classes. And it was really something to see. When it was finished, 1500 balloons had been strung, clustered and taped to form walls and ceilings. All that week almost any time you walked by—day or night—you’d be li- kely to see students inside, sitting on the floor, sometimes talking quietly together, often marveling at the funny way their voices sounded. In addition they may have been relax- ing, enjoying the cozy, closed-in feeling and the subtle play of color as light filtered through the red balloons in gradu- ations of rose, pink, maroon. “This project just kind of evolved.” Mr. Arnold explained. “I just wanted to build a large scale sculpture without a big investment in materials, and got the idea of using balloons; but first I expected to work with them outdoors. We dis- covered that the Exhibition Area would be free for a week, and that seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up. It gave the students a chance to work with something big, not just the conventional classroom pedestal-type object. The final configuration was all their idea, based on the theme of using form and space in an abstract way and building it as a group project rather than as the expression of any one individual.” Mr. Arnold said that the experiment had been so well re- ceived that he would do something similar next semester, hopefully using different materials. But as far as the rest of us are concerned, we’d settle for another balloon room. Fantastic! 6