Piñata!

This Friday was the opening of the Work:Detroit Touch show. Everything in the show invited audience participation, and you got to touch everything. I had a pinata in the show.



I put about 4 pounds of candy in there. I wasn't sure about my engineering skills but it held.

Photo courtesy of gallery director Stephen Schudlich.

My main worries about the thing was that it would either a) break open after one hit and be really anticlimactic, or b) not break open at all, but only sort of crumple in on itself, which is something that can happen with pinatas made of newspaper like this.

BUT. You guys. Neither of those things happened. It went PERFECTLY. There were so many people in the gallery, and everyone crowded around to watch and cheer. Six people got a chance to hit it. They got blindfolded and spun around by me. Everyone got 3 swings at it, and everyone hit it at least once out of their 3 swings. First the arm fell off, then the other arm, the someone got a headshot in that knocked half the hair off.

It was finally split open by artist Ryan Standfest.

Photo courtesy of a stranger.

It was beautiful. Everyone was smiling and cheering and having a great time. I kept laughing and stomping my feet, I was loving it so much.

It split open so perfectly. I think the heavy candy is what helped make it not crumple.



BONUS real life piñata lady. I bet that lady was REALLY kicking her self about her outfit choice. Unbelievable.



After it split, people dived for candy and body parts. Which were then relocated throughout the gallery.



All in all, a terrific time and a great show! The corpse is still hanging by the door, and the show is open until Dec 24. Lots of cool pieces, plus a free original artwork available by mail order from one Andy Gabrysiak.