Gnomes, paper doilies, Bambi with an upside down Hebrew letter tav on it’s forehead, and nigh indecipherable psychotic chicken scratching. Oh and something about a Temple of Pet Peeves, so they might be building a temple… Or they might not.… We’re really not sure. Hell we’re not even completely sure that Sophia & Ray are completely sane.

Anyway, we had Joseph check the Balsa Man bylaws and it doesn’t say anything about how many temples Balsa Man is supposed to have. So, Balsa Man 2009 might go down as the year of the dueling temples: The Temple of Minor Irregularities Vs. the Temple of Pet Peeves.

Congratulations Sophia & Ray! The BPAF has granted you a tiny art grant of $2 for your Temple of Pet Peeves or whatever it is you are planning on building.

Now remember we gave you a grant so uh… if the gnomes tell you to do anything bad to us—or our pets—don’t listen to them!

This completely beautiful and well designed grant proposal came to us all the way from Minneapolis, MN! Sadly, Cali Mastny won’t be able to bring her Tiny Star Tree to Balsa Man as it’s a bit far—she’d only able to make it to the regional event in Black Rock Desert.

We wish her well in the dust of the desert and the BPAF is very proud to award her $5 for to make her Tiny Star Tree a reality!

We all love Michael Christian’s work here at the BPAF headquarters. Unfortunately, his artwork is often far too large and we sadly had to deny his art grant proposal to this year’s Balsa Man. We asked if he could reduce is vision, but he decided to bring his work elsewhere.

As unfortunate as this is, we did not fret long for in the mail we found this joyful grant proposal!

A homage to bit Michael Christian and Cute Overload! I didn’t know that was even possible! Our dispair dissipated, everyone on the BPAF grant review committee instantly raised their hands in favor of awarding Rachel and her art project Fleck a tiny art grant of $5.

UPDATE

Rachel has already crafted her adorable Fleck which can be seen here: Fleck on Flickr

After receiving this grant proposal, we asked all the scientists we knew if squids could dream. The first said, “how would I know I’m a physicist?” and the second said,”I don’t know I just study their optical neuron pathways.”

Getting nowhere we decided this was a question outside the bounds of science so we asked Sunshine, our resident expert on anything not having anything to do with science. She replied that “Of course squid can dream! The squid here was likely compensating for feelings of inferiority by appearing gigantic in it’s dream.”

So there you have it, a squid with an inferiority complex. How could we not give a tiny art grant to such a beast?

Congratulations Justina Kochansky! The BPAF awards you $10 for your project Big Squid Dreams.

UPDATE: Justina’s has uploaded a photo to flickr of her adorable sleeping squid!

UPDATE: The final Squid Dream which was unveiled at Balsa Man was amazing. Also, it has just recently been showcased on Laughing Squid.

We were surprised that this art grant proposal fit through the mailbox. Measuring a whopping 7 7/16 inches wide, 5 3/8 inches tall, and 1/4 inch deep, this foam-core grant proposal could only be called a postcard in the barest sense of the word.

Now some may assume that the Balsa Man Org may have a bias against the artificial and non-burn-freindly material foamcore. It is true of course that the Black Pebble Arts Foundation does have a member of the Balsa Lobby on it’s board; however, this in no way influences our the the decisions of the BPAF tiny art grant review committee. Also, we understand that  some artists were trained in this foamcore medium and have yet to acquire the proper training to work in balsa wood.

No matter our feelings regarding foamcore, the entire tiny art grant review committee was ecstatic about this tiny art car proposal. Between this and Lil Contessa we are uncertain which tiny art car we are eagerly anticipating most. Also, we are all in agreement that this is one of our favorite art grant proposal designs yet!

Congratulations Simon on your amazing Pig-E-Smalls tiny art car! The BPAF has decided to award you $15 plus 31¢ so that next time you can afford proper postage.

The Balsa Man event has already gained it’s share of tiny art projects that the full sized participants can stoop around and enjoy. But where are the little people? Where are the puny participants who can appreciate the tiny art as the huge feats of wonder they really are?

Never fear for the Balsars are here! The amazing team of Greg Andrea, Betania, and Jeff are bringing these little 1/16 scale participants to life in balsa. The tiny Balsars will even have little Porta-potties! And all they ask for is $2 for blue paint so that the Balsars can find their porta-potties—how can we not fund some a perfect project?

Congratulations Team Balsar for your award of $2 from the BPAF!