106 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 5.15

Meet Louisville's balloon king — and jester.

Air PowerBy Ashlie StevensPhoto by Aaron Kingsbury

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METHODM

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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