And here she is to announcing the San Diego Balsa Regional in her own words…

San Diego Balsa Man Regional Lead and bad-assed hooper Angelica

San Diego will be hosting it’s very first Balsa Man event on Saturday, Sept. 3 at 5:30pm.  The event will take place at one of the bonfire pits on Fiesta Island (look for the pit with the Balsa Man!).  This year’s man will be 2.5 feet tall, with a fire pit as the base, to celebrate one of San Diego’s favorite summer past times.  The man will burn 7pm, just before sunset.

We look forward to all the tiny art that the community will bring.  Please remember that the burning of artwork, along with cleanup, is the responsibility of the artist.  However, because the man base is a fire pit, we will also permit tiny art to be thrown in after the man falls.  We have a couple tiny DJ sets lined up already, and will have supplies available with which to make tiny s’mores!

More information can be found on the Facebook event page. If you would like to get involved or have questions about the regional you can email gro.namaslabnull@DSaslab.

Balsa Man Japan at sunset, photo by cabcab

Once again Balsa Man is being celebrated around the world! Both Balsa Man Japan and Balsa Blighty, the London Balsa Regional are on again after such a resounding joyful success they were last year!

Check out the write up from Balsa Man Japan 2010  and the video from Balsa Blighty 2010!

Whether you live across the Pacific pond or the Atlantic pond highly encourage you to join the tiny fun!

Balsa Man Japan

Date: Aug 21nd, Sunday, 5pm
Location: TBA; contact gro.namaslabnull@napajaslab

Balsa Man Japan Twitter
Balsa Man Japan website
Balsa Man Japan Facebook Event

Balsa Blighty, Balsa Man London

Date: Sep 3rd, 7–10pm
Location: TBA; follow Balsa Blighty on Twitter or Facebook

Balsa Blighty Twitter
Balsa Blighty Facebook
Balsa Blighty Facebook Event

The New England Black Rock Desert Camper Regional, Firefly, usually has a giant bug as the effigy, and this year somehow ended up with a woolly mammoth. In that spirit of change and growth, and in line with the “Growing Pains” theme of this year’s Balsa Man, participants at the NE Balsa Man regional will burn a 2′ effigy of a glowworm. This insect symbolizes our hopes for illumination and the difficulties of ecydysis yielding to mature awareness (and becoming a full-grown bug).

Abe Shultz is the regional contact for the New England Balsa Man Regional. He has been attending Firefly for the last four years, as a member of SSRI and Totenkitten. His art has not injured the unwary, but there is always next year.

The regional will take place on Saturday September 3rd somewhere sandy in the Boston/Cape Cod area with the exact time and location to be determined. If you would like to get involved or find out more you can contact Abe at gro.namaslabnull@ENaslab.

The Balsa Man Org continues to encourage new regional balsa burns around the country and the world! If you would like to host your own regional burn and are interesting in receiving a tiny art grant please review our Balsa Regionals page.

Balsa Man was a tiny bit better last year. Don’t go.

I hear the beach can be chilly and there’s sand everywhere and the whole place is overrun with seagulls and screaming children and tourists. Besides, in this economy I can’t afford to spend $2 on MUNI let alone take time off from my job at Costco Soulmate Trading Outlet. Wait! What do you say? You can’t afford to take time off from the DPW/Rangers/Cafe/Lamplighters/Temple/DOOM RAVE/Gate Crew either? And you can’t find a babysitter for your sparklepony OR a ride to San Francisco OR a pair of pants? Well, perfect!

While everyone on Baker Beach is buttoning up their parkas and fumbling with their thermal underwear we’ll throw our own Balsa Man in the Black Rock Desert. Let’s say, 5pm on Friday September 2nd at Costco Soulmate Trading Outlet? It’s a deal. You bring the tiny toothpick art and I’ll bring the flamethrower. See you at Funeral and 8:45!

Feral, 2011 BRC Balsa Man Regional Rep

Yours in minutia,

Feral

Manager of Costco Soulmate Trading Outlet and 2011 Black Rock Balsa Man Regional Rep

You can find Feral on twitter as @IHazRabies

RSVP to the Black Rock Balsa Regional on the Facebook event page!

The Balsa Man Org continues to encourage new regional balsa burns around the country and the world! If you would like to host your own regional burn and are interesting in receiving a tiny art grant please review our Balsa Regionals page.

As the date for the 2011 Balsa Man slowly approaches, I realize I am overdue to turn in my report from the 2010 Balsa Man Regional Burn. Apologies for my tardiness. I had a marginally rough return to what I am now calling the “Deficient World”, and I allowed minor commitments get in the way of a proper Balsa breakdown. This year’s Balsa Man Regional Burn was held on a dry lakebed in rural Nevada. It was attended by several dozen Tiny Art enthusiasts and builders, as well as a few passersby from a nearby arts & crafts festival.

BalsaMan: Black Rock almost didn’t happen at all.

Some crazed firebrand snuck up on proceedings just as a small crowd was starting to gather, and set the initial Balsa Man sculpture on fire. 2010 was the year our (regional) Balsa Man burned early!

The identity of this Early-Burn Arsonist is unknown, although he was pursued immediately by our perimeter staff

 and was in custody long enough for this mug shot to be taken.

Alas he slipped out of our low-security cells almost immediately.

After the initial Balsa structure met a premature end, the sparse crowd was left disappointed and a little let-down.  Fortunately,there were enough raw materials on hand at our nearby camp to fabricate a new and almost-as-good Balsa Man.  Many sleepless minutes were spent creating this new flammable sculpture, lest the assembled few have to find a way to entertain themselves.

Sharp-eyed readers will note it’s stuffed with copies of “Dress Warm”, Balsa Man’s favorite alternative newspaper.

Once we had our diminutive centerpiece back in place, SFSlim kicked off the proceedings with some impromptu and very-free-form fire-spinning.  His choice of “poi” (strike-anywhere matches) may have given him some tiny burns on his fingers.

People in front were asked to take a seat, so those in the back could see even more easily.

The Tiny Art was moderately impressive, and you could tell that several minutes had been lavished on some pieces. A bit less on others. There was a falstaff, the small wooden churches favored by Norwegian black metal musicians; an articulated sculpture of a finger picking a balsanose; as well as a small wooden porta-potty.

All of this was drizzled in lighter fluid and set ablaze, in front of the bar at our little camp, which we call The Fandango Village.

So despite the minor setback of our central structure catching on fire early, we persevered and had a reasonably decent time.  Thanks for letting our little village host the event for 2010, and I look forward to attending the 2011 Balsa Man Regional, at some puny camp called Costco.

As experienced by Malderor

(Photos by Audrey Penven and Neil Girling)

Balsa Man Japan 2010 - Lamp Fighters, photo by toitoi

I’ve gone through all the photos and video from the event with relish—especially the tiny Hot Chihuahua Stand! But nothing beats a first hand account so I will let Makibee, the Japan Balsa Regional Lead tell the story…

“After having 3 Art building parties, we managed to build Balsa man. It looked a bit sketchy with chopped chopsticks but we decided to make it a little Japanese by using them. There were 12 artists involved in making the Balsa Man, all of which signed his tiny heart.”

Balsa Man Japan at sunset, photo by cabcab

“It was one tiny wonderful evening at Zushi beach. We all got very excited, touched and it finished at 8pm. It was such a time efficient dose of excitement and of course it was the first time for all of us to have Balsa Man. It felt great, indeed!

Zushi is a popular beach city in nice laid back community of Kanagawa. One hour train ride with Balsa Man was already a big fun and I was more nervous than the day I took my 4 day old daughter to the hospital by train. He behaved well, so we could carry him to the beach without a damage. There were a few people looking at me and kids pointing gleefully at the man.”

Balsa Man Japan rides the subway, photo by toitoi

“Our friends arrived at Zushi beach and art works were revealed. It was such a great time of sharing, celebrating and having fun. Even the beautiful sunset seemed to celebrate us with salmon pink tint. About 25 artists including tiny ones under 4 attended the Balsa Man.

After the sun sets, the beach was lit with LEDs and boom boom psyche trance from the NEKO-bus. It made me think what I should make for the next Balsa Man.”

Cat Bus, photo by toitoi

“After Ayumi’s puppet size fire hooping, we set fireworks. We had quite a lot of them however not enough to lit the Man. Probably because the wind was too strong, the campfire helper jell was not enough and the chopsticks were moist from the damp ocean wind. So we damped Ayumi’s fuel for fire hooping and lit the man again, which worked for the alpaca, the temple and the rest of art works as well. It was great to have everybody around the fire and watch everything burn.”

Balsa Man Japan fireworks, photo by toitoi

“Most of the participants have been to the desert but this could be the first time to make ART, figures, and  structures to be burnt. When survival and air plane luggage limit come first, making a solid chunk of art was such a dream to be a part of. It is an irony that we finally had more freedom to make art by limiting the scale to 1/16. And I love that twist

After the burn, we stopped by a cozy beach house turned into a small movie theater; called Cinema Amigo. And we toasted our first burn in Zushi, promising the next year.”

More photos are available on the Balsa Man Japan Flickr Pool and on the following people’s albums.

• toitoi (photographer, she made the alpaca)
• ijinden (Makibee’s husband, he did the hotdog cart)
• cabcab (he made NEKO-bus)
• IKD (he made PSYCHE head and his wife Akane made Millu-san on wheels)
• Centaurs (Centaurs himself seen here running on the beach and his son Mini-taurs)

Congratulations Makibee and all the Japan Balsa Burners for adding a bit of tiny magic to this world! We are all truly inspired by your creativity and jubilation!

Toothpick Man, Near End of the Beach Regional

Keith Schon

Toothpicks, photo by Svenneman

I had a lot of fun last year participating in Balsa Man: volunteering at the Cafe, driving my RC art car around.  But the fact of the matter is, hauling all that stuff all the way to the far end of the beach is a pain in the ass.  It takes a lot of time, preparation, and endurance.  And all the “coping” — sand in my shoes, trying hard to find people… geeze!  I can’t do that every year.

This year, I want there to be an alternative for all those people who can’t get their act together in time for Balsa Man.  I intend to hold an even tinier event:  ”Toothpick Man”.  This will be held in the parking lot, or at the base of the stairs, depending on  circumstances.  The scale for this event will be approximately 1/5 that of Balsa Man, (i.e. 1/80 scale).  It will involve creature-comforts that are simply not available at the far end of the beach.

Grant requested:  $5 * 1/5 = $1

Simply bitsy brilliant Keith! We are more than happy to award you your grant of $1 and we will also be sending you a 1/5th size official regional certificate.

Balsa Big Ben

Balsa Big Ben is 99% complete and we are putting on the finishing touches Sunday.  We’ve been hard at work cutting, swearing, gluing, drinking, sanding, and throwing our arms up in frustration… this last bit was when we found ourselves out of both glue and drink. Oh dear! We have powered through the difficult times and managed to get done without firing any volunteers or having any visits to medical professionals.

The Balsa Blighty Tiny Art Team met last night to review art grant submissions and a £5 art grant was awarded to Super Chicken of Balsa Blighty – a 6-8inch tall Super Chicken/ Rooster. It’s more of a Chicken so we shall call him a Chicken. He is made from several customized sizes of strike-on-the-box matches and clear glue. The frame of his body at least, the exterior of him will be covered in raffia of several colours depending on the location and appropriate colour. Cardboard may also be involved as well as a mysterious 3rd foot to make sure he stands upright.

Our other art projects include:

• Tiny Nowhere Omnibus – scheduled, on-time, public transport and tiny art tours. Complete with tiny passengers. Ding! Ding!
• Greening Balsa Blighty – trees trees everywhere making Balsa Blighty a greener sight to behold for all, tiny or otherwise.
• Mini Quixote’s Cabaret – the playa’s favourite British pub in a wee size!

We have also heard rumours of doves, mini ball bits, a flea circus acting as rangers, and perhaps even a tiny Gladys the Green Goddess. Gladys is part of the Nowhere Fire Service and is a much loved member of our community – more about the big size can be found on the Facebook page

I’m back to sniff some more balsa glue and finish the Big Ben!

I’m so excited for this! And we found a great location too! For location information for Balsa Blighty email gro.namaslabnull@ythgilbaslab

-Cheeky

Balsa Man Japan sits waiting for the burn!

It’s shaping up to be a don’t miss event—and sadly since BART doesn’t yet have a Tokyo station, I won’t be there. If you are planning on going make sure to review the Balsa Man Japan Tiny Map and read the Balsa Man Japan Survival Guide. Some wonderful tiny art and minute vehicles are going to be there, check out the photos below (more photos are on the Balsa Man Japan Flickr Group.

Cat Bus for Balsa Man Japan, photo by cabcab

Lamp fighters, back stage, photo by ijinden

Not willing to leave this summer lacking in all that is tiny, the excellent Felix Strates is hosting “With a Cherry on Top” the Minneapolis Balsa Man Regional (Summer Edition): Sept 4th, 7-12pm in Minneapolis (exact location to be determined.

For more information check out the Facebook invite: Minneapolis Balsa Man Regional Summer Edition: With a Cherry on Top or email Felix the regional lead at gro.namaslabnull@psmaslab