Tim Walker has always been one of my favourite photographers, someone who takes the otherworldy and captures ethereal and magical moments crystallizing them for us all to enjoy.
His dedication to magic and beauty is a wonderful thing. In 2019 he wrote a love letter to the V&A Museum in London. In it, he said, โ Each new shoot is a love letter to an object from the V&A collection, and an attempt to capture my encounter with the sublime.โ
It struck me that what I have always tried to do in my interviews with artists is to find the sublime I experience in that person and share it with the world. Sometimes people reveal the most divine thing to me and it seems terribly selfish not to share them wider.
Recently I interviewed Christina Ricci, for PUSS PUSS Magazine in the midst of a lot of hard change and was compelled to ask her how she navigates difficult times. Something about her reply was such a comfort, that it sparked me to write this whole thing because I felt more people needed to hear it. Below are the wise words of the Iconic actress who is forever Wednesday Addams.
โ I think the thing that has always helped me to move forward and has propelled me into better circumstances has been that I have a real willingness. I've always had this real willingness and eagerness to grab the balloon. ๐
If there's a chance for happiness, I jump on board, I will grab that balloon with almost this faith that it's going to take me to something better and take me out of whatever it is that I'm going through.โ
Itโs funny how transformative it can be to have someone share such a simple metaphor for how to attain happiness but itโs so powerful. Symbolically balloons have always represented exploration, elevation, and joy. They represent our aims, objectives, and dreams in life and act as symbols of what we aspire to achieve. We may not always be aware but our balloons fly in ways and at a pace that we would like our lives to fly like in order to reach our realize our ambitions.
Even the term speech balloon implies a container for elevated ideas, a container to speak your desires into being. Back to the phrase though, if you are truly sad, someone reminding you to โ hold on to the balloonโ might be the vehicle of hope that you need. I know after that conversation my heart felt lighter for a minute and my intention with this newsletter is that yours will too.
If we think of the balloon as a vehicle for hope, the mere act of holding the string and trusting is a leap of faith that can transform things for us. On a grander scale, the ability of balloons to encourage us to dream big has been evident since the 1700s when the Montgolfier brothers sent a hot air balloon to the skies, staffed with a crew of one duck, a sheep, and a cockerel. Buoyed by their safe return to land, flocking to the skies became a compulsion heralding the age of โBalloonomaniaโ.
One of the lucky few to take the first manned flight was Dr. Alexander Charles who was instantly enamored:
โI felt as if I were flying away from the earth and all its troubles and persecutions forever. It was not mere delight, it was physical raptureโฆ.I am finished with the Earth. From now on our place is in the sky!โ
The magic of hot air balloons is that they allow humans two gifts, the ability to fly and the chance to view the world from a new perspective. The symbolism with them is endless because what else is hope but the ability to shift the viewpoint of your circumstances to a place of height and distance gaining the valuable perspective we all crave.
By coincidence, Graydon Carterโs wonderful Airmail shared a piece about Alan Lamorisseโs 1956 short film โThe Red Balloon,โ where a young boy befriends a red balloon.
On their website, Sam Kashner made a beautiful conclusion about the movieโs appeal:
โFor one thing, it recognized the universal need for magic and imagination, as well as the universality of envy, and our penchant for destroying whatโs rare and beautiful in this world. But what saves the film from despair is its ending: once the balloon has withered into nothing, balloons of many colors throughout Paris break from their owners and lift Pascal triumphantly into the Parisian skies.โ
He perfectly captures the appeal of the balloon for me, theyโre bright, joyful and temporary, like so many things we love. The balloon though is easily replaced, sometimes by many more colourful ones, but the important thing is to trust what they ask of us, to take them as we find them, hold tight to the strings, and see where we land.
Here are 3 little balloons to get you started.
๐
Boards of Canada: Everything you do is a Balloon.
Excellent ambient music and an ideal soundtrack as you float to new heights.
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Geronimo Balloons, Jihan likes to make the world a prettier place.
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Jeff Koons, whose tiny lil koonsdogs are the most divisive of balloons.
This is so well written and inspiring. Bravaaaaa
Well written, Gemma. Sorry I took so long to get round to reading it. I'm looking forward to reading more like this. Love, Dad