Last week I was in the middle of nowhere, in a place called 8550 Ohio (formerly known as Harold Arts). The place is near a town called Chesterhill, 20 minutes from Athens, OH. The experience was magical. A group of artists (music/visual) were nominated to participate on a residency during the month of August 2013. Jason Ajemian invited me to come and there I meet with other artists that live in the midwest, specially Chicago. There I met with the other leaders of this program: Joe Jeffers and Frank Van Duerm (both badass). They were very good hosts and made sure that we had everything  we needed to make good stuff. When I asked Frank if there was any way I could help needed some help with the dishes, he said : we just want you to make awesome work. With that support in mind, I adventured to get immersed in the experience of making something brand new. The studio space is a few minutes from the lodge, the place were we slept and ate.

The studios are totally amazing. They were made out of wood from the farm and had 2 stories. It was great to share space with Jeff, Jessica, Ally, Dani and Molly. There were also other artists that worked on the lodge. During my time there I experimented making solar balloons. a bizarre science project that consists of making flying objects using trash bags. I have been trying to make spaceships, or flying saucers since 2010 and this occasion I succeeded in creating a working balloon.

I am planning on continuing working on some more designs, but this residency gave me the space to create this large-scale experiment. In the future I hope to make some more solar balloons.

The trash bags lift because of the hot air inside it is lighter than the surrounding air. The heat is all generated by the temperature accumulated by the dark color of the bags.

The days at 8550 were wonderful. We lived in a community of like-minded artists, in a wonderful environment that had everything we needed plus a pond!

Happy artists