… Leo said: "You carry a tank in your car and blow them up when you get there. Then you put them all together, and you go in and do the performance and give them the balloons." 

I thought that sucked, but it was money, and I needed it, and I'd do my best to deal with it. My first day, however, was Valentines Day. 

Crescent Blues: Oh no. How many deliveries? 

Teresa Patterson: I don't remember how many it was. At the time, it seemed like a million. It was probably only seven or eight… 

Crescent Blues: Times 24 balloons… 

Teresa Patterson: Which now I could do with no sweat. But back then, trying to get between all these places and get the balloons done and be in the right make-up and spike heels and costume and perform and deliver and be on time was extremely stressful. I nearly quit right then and there. But it was performing, and the Barys, unlike the other company, did seem serious about working with everybody. 

The Barys' office was in their home -- they didn't have a fancy office like the other place -- but they were really nice folks. I couldn't tell the other company that I was working for two, so the other company had no problem about sending me through the entire Metroplex, or into South Dallas at midnight or into Plano. 

Leo's company was very careful to try to keep me in areas near my home. The problem was, since the other company didn't, I was literally driving the length and breadth of the Metroplex two or three times every day. It ate cars. 

Eventually, the other company went under, and I worked full-time for Leo's company. Gradually we started phasing in the decorating. He found out I was really good at that. 

Crescent Blues: Decorating as in… 

Teresa Patterson: As in making balloon sculptures. It started out by people saying: "You have balloons. Could you decorate our birthday party?" And Leo would go and do that. Or: "Gee, could you decorate our apartment complex?" And Leo would go and do that -- or have us do it. We ended up joining him in doing the balloon sculptures. Eventually, over the years, there became less and less singing telegrams and more and more sculpting jobs. At this point, it's all decorating and no singing. 

Crescent Blues: What's the name of the company? 

Teresa Patterson: Balloons To You. We're a little bitty, Ma-and-Pa, International balloon company. I'll send you some pictures. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get pictures of one of the most interesting projects we did during the past year. We did four cowboys out of balloons, one of whom was over 20 feet tall. We're talking lariats, moustaches, hats, ropes, spurs -- the whole bit. Entirely out of balloons except for some felt in their hats. 

Crescent Blues: This is not what you think about when you think of balloon sculptures, though. When most people think of balloon sculptures, they think of little dogs that you turn around. 

Teresa Patterson: No these are large sculptures made out of individual balloons. [In March], for example, we did four giant grape clusters for an Olive Garden™. 

Crescent Blues: Is this something the company invented, or were there models out there, and the company said: "So-and-so is doing this. Let's see if we can make it better." 

Teresa Patterson: It's a combination. Our style is something Leo invented. You can go to classes and learn to do balloon sculpting that looks pretty much like our stuff. But they teach a much different process. The difference is that we have a system. Skill is important. You cannot do it unless you really know what you're doing. But if you know what you're doing, you can do it five times as fast as the way the classes teach it. 

This means that we can go out and, in one day, do seven or eight or ten parties or events. Or one really, really big one. As a result, we are now the official balloon company for American Airlines. They send us wherever to do balloons for their events, because they know we can go in there with two people and do an entire airport set up for them in a matter of hours. 

Crescent Blues: In addition to the cowboys, what are some of the more unusual things you've done? 

Teresa Patterson: Tin soldiers, candy canes, Christmas trees. Basically, if you can draw it, we can probably build it out of balloons. Probably one of the strangest ones was a helicopter. We did have a frame for the helicopter. 

Crescent Blues: Do the sculptures usually have a framework or armature, or are they usually just balloons tied or wired together? 

Teresa Patterson: It usually depends on whether it's for a one-shot party or whether it has to last for several days. If it has to last for several days, it has to be done out of air or high float (liquid silicon) treated helium balloons. If it's an air-filled sculpture, the easiest way to do that is to put it on an armature. If it's for one day, we're usually good enough that we can free-form just about anything without having to put an armature under it. 

Crescent Blues: Who commissioned the helicopter? 

Teresa Patterson: It was either for Textron or something for Bell Helicopter or the helicopter show. I don't even remember who the client was. But they wanted a helicopter. For that one we did do an armature, and the blades were made out of wood. The armature was wood and chicken wire, and the balloons were built on to it. 

Crescent Blues: Was it built in situ? 

Teresa Patterson: Everything is built on the site where it's going to go. We don't bring anything in, because there is too much stuff that could happen to it. And everything we do is much too big to fit into anything but a really big truck. But a bag of uninflated balloons fits into a little box very nicely. And my truck carries five or six or seven tanks of helium, depending on which way I'm rigging it. The big trucks carry 13 or 14 tanks of helium, plus plenty of boxes of balloons.  

Crescent Blues: What kind of trucks are we talking about here -- vans, panel trucks? 

Teresa Patterson: Full-size vans -- three-quarter ton and one ton vans. 

Crescent Blues: So we're not talking container trucks. 

Teresa Patterson: Well, we do use container trucks when we're doing giant, inflatable balloons like the kind they use in Macy's™ parade. We don't make those kinds of balloons. But we do, occasionally get called on to be the inflaters and handlers. 

Crescent Blues: So it's more than just sculptures. Balloons To You offers a wide range of balloon-related service. 

Teresa Patterson: I am a team leader for the balloon sculpture shop. The company handles wholesale balloon supplies, delivery of balloon supplies, complete tanks of helium, printing services for balloons. Anything that has anything to do with balloons, we have a finger in somewhere. We're one of the few companies that is wholesale and retail, and decorator. The good part is that Leo's got all the bases covered. The bad part is that no matter how beautiful our balloon sculptures are, they will never be in any of the balloon magazines, because we're considered unfair competition. 

Crescent Blues: You've been involved with art shows for some time. Did this just grow naturally out of your involvement in science fiction cons? Or did it have something to do with the balloons and decorating? 

Teresa Patterson: The balloons and art shows had nothing to do with each other. Although currently, my only claim to doing art is balloon art, originally, I was entering art in art shows. I did paint and draw.  

Crescent Blues: All the way back to college? 

Teresa Patterson: Yes. As a matter of fact, as a young person I didn't know whether I wanted to be an artist or a writer or a horse trainer or a singer. So I was trying to work on all of the above at the same time. Eventually, they culled themselves out by lack of opportunity. 

But I was an artist at the time, and some acquaintances of mine were running an art show at a local Fantasy Fair. Something happened -- I don't know exactly what -- but it blew up on them. Whoever was supposed to run it disappeared, and the girl who was with whoever was supposed to do it was suddenly standing there at the opening hour with absolutely no idea what to do. My crew and I ended up jumping in and saying, "Let's see if we figure out if we can do this." We kind of invented a system on the spot.  

Fortunately, before this happened, I had volunteered at a WorldCon art show and had seen what kind of paperwork they used for WorldCon shows and the kind of administration they did at that level. Therefore, at least I had a clue about what was required. So we went in, cobbled the show together, invented a system and made it run. After that, the fellow who ran the convention came up to us and said, "OK, you're running it from now on." And we were. 

Then we got a reputation for doing it really, really well, because I'm very good at designing systems. I invented the "Do-It-Yourself Art Show Kit" which we still send out to art shows that are in need of a basic "how do we get there from here" instruction. People can email me to order a copy. 

We ended up being really, really good at running art shows and being asked to set up more art shows than we could possibly do. Eventually, we devised a system where we got recompensed, so we could have some way of separating the wheat from the chaff, because there was no way we could do everything they wanted us to do. 

Crescent Blues: Could we pause here for a little explanation for folks who've never been to a con art show, and might not know what's involved here. 

Teresa Patterson: OK, a quick history: science fiction art shows started out as, "Gee, I have drawings of my favorite story, or I have drawings of Mr. Spock, shouldn't we have a place to display those?" People would gather together tables and chairs, or set aside a room and put people's pictures up so other people could see them who were attending this conference about the literature of science fiction and fantasy. 

When media science fiction started becoming popular, the conventions started becoming much bigger and, eventually, so did the art shows. Now, at the larger regional and national shows…  

Teresa Patterson - Continued