Balloons reach a new high By Adam Hardy For The News-Chronicle Look! Up in the sky, is it a bird? A plane? A...mermaid? If it is a creation by Balloons By Us, it can be whatever you like. Balloons By Us provides a new take on party and event decor by offering custom made balloon art for all occasions. The style and scope of their decorations are limited by imagination alone. Owners Lynne Gerrits and Ron Luschow began their adventures in hand-hewn balloon sculptures in 1998, after attending the five-day International Balloon Convention in Chicago. Since then, their creations have set the mood at KI's Oktoberfest, Barnes and Noble Packer Day, Oneida Bingo & Casino's New Year's festival, and Green Bay East High School homecoming, just to name a few. Gerrits and Luschow work the business as a team from their home in Green Bay. Gerrits is a self-described "outgoing, high energy, professional woman in my fifty-somethings." She takes care of logistical management for projects when on-site. Luschow is a down-to-earth and clear-spoken man who works the business part-time when he isn't selling fire and rescue equipment. Luschow, along with a retired friend, create the frameworks for sculptures by working on layout and bending aluminum rod or conduit on their basement floor. The operation is a family affair, with everyone lending a hand when a big job comes. "I don't really have any full-time employees," says Gerrits. "We call our sons and daughters and my mom and they all pitch in." While Gerrits says that it was tough learning how to work as a team in the beginning, they have all progressed quite a bit over the past six years. "Now we have it down to an art," she said. "You blow, you tie, you twist." The world of balloon artistry is surprisingly complex. Thousands of balloons in every possible shape and size must be carefully attached to complex scaffolding. When finished, professional designers like Gerrits and Luschow create massive displays and floating bouquets that can fill an entire event hall. "It could take five or six people 12 hours a day for two or three days to do a big show," said Luschow. This is a far cry from clown-forged animal shapes or the haphazard array of helium balloons bobbing against the ceiling at your 5th birthday party. These arrangements touch the fantastic, and an international community of balloon architects are constantly working to outdo each other with bigger and better designs at their conventions. The element that sets balloon-craft apart from other art is its changeability. "My product can last a long time, or it can pop and be gone like a puff of smoke," said Gerrits. As is true with most art forms, this one comes with a host of expensive equipment. A special compressor that helps inflate balloons quickly and to exact specifications costs $800. A bow-tying machine runs $500. But both Gerrits and Luschow agree that it is worth it. "We couldn't live without this stuff. This saves us from latex poisoning," Gerrits laughed. In order to reduce overhead, Luschow home-fashions some of their specialized equipment. For instance, he created lights that sit inside balloons without getting hot enough to break them. What would usually retail at $250 only cost them $7. They also purchase their balloons in bulk from wholesalers in New York, Minneapolis, Ohio, and Milwaukee. By attending events and practicing their craft, Gerrits and Luschow have managed to create contacts all over the world that help them to learn and progress in their art, said Gerrits. And it is this community that keeps them forever involved and refreshed by their work. Decorations by Balloons By Us include arches, columns, canopies, walls, centerpieces, sculptures, balloon drops/releases and bows. For more information, contact Balloons By Us at [email protected].