New at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade: A sunny little cloud
LOS ANGELES — Smiley clouds have floated through the art of Samuel Borkson and Arturo Sandoval III ever since they started working together, in 2002, under the peppy name Friendswithyou.
Their first website had a cloud you could click on to make a rainbow tongue appear. Their 2010 animated short “Cloudy” featured lighthearted clouds making music and rain. And as the artists have grown more successful, they’ve made public sculptures and a range of merchandise, from smartphone covers to limited-edition lamps, in that familiar fluffy form.
Now their signature character, Little Cloud, is making its biggest appearance yet, as a 30-footwide balloon in this year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City.
“Culture has a way of materializing what we need, and what we need is uplifting and optimistic,” said Sandoval, 42, slouching on a candy-colored beanbag chair next to Borkson, 39, also on a beanbag, in their downtown studio here in October.
“Little Cloud is a simplified symbol of light and hope, a happy little gift,” Borkson said with an earnestness that is unusual, if not heretical, in the art world.
The annual Thanksgiving Day spectacle draws some 3.5 million people to the parade route and 50 million viewers to their screens, according to the parade’s executive producer, Susan Tercero. It’s the seventh time Macy’s has invited contemporary artists to design a balloon for what it calls its “Blue Sky Gallery” series.
“We’ve worked with a range of artists, from Jeff Koons to KAWS,” Tercero said. “This just felt right — their cloud is very cute and whimsical. And what better balloon to create than a cloud?” She said it measured about 22 feet tall and will rise, depending on winds, “anywhere from 30 to 40 feet into the air,” with the help of 38 handlers to keep it from flying away.
The parade fits the populist, art-for-all ethos of Friendswithyou, which also has two Manhattan gallery shows this month. A Canal Street popup, The Hole, is displaying the artists’ new bronze sculptures,