Reaching an astonishing 100 thousand 810 hundred feet near Space, whilst simultaneously creating a world-first work of art by all means made JoshingTalk Space Art (JTSA) a success. Everything and everyone pulled together to make it happen, some in small ways and some in big including the most powerful of us all, Mother Nature.
I had set out on the morning of the 11th August 2012 with 150 miles of driving to the launch site, giving me plenty of time to wonder if I’d done all I can to make JTSA work. My confidence grew as I met Adam (http://habe.acudworth.co.uk/blog) who kindly agreed to help out by using his radio telemetry tracker to follow JTSA throughout its journey and within half an hour, we had the balloon inflated and the payloads ready to go. A few little finishing touches, including my signature on the canvas and a slight mis-hap with some over-excited yellow solution (read ‘solution’ as ‘paint’) and we were ready for launch. Slowly running the string through our fingers, we raised the balloon until, with a final push, we saw it soar higher and higher, being enveloped by the metaphorical hands of Mother Nature.
I had provided the ingredients, now it was up to her to fabricate a work of art.
We tracked JTSA for a good hour and a half, following it North as the winds made their contribution. We were still largely unaware that the canvas had even managed to stay attached let alone have a decent splattering of the Sun (Yellow), Land (Green), Sea (Blue) and Desert (Brown) paints. Watching the GoPro footage re-told what left us clueless as we see solution being flung from the canvas, the pipettes making engravings and the canvas straining to hold on as it begins to fall back to Earth.
Clear signals throughout the descent got us within walking distance of JTSA as she landed. Unfortunately this meant navigating through 6 foot high corn crops. Great shot for the ground cameraman mind! Then a clearing approached and sat in the middle of the next field was JTSA, having survived the unforgiving conditions of near Space and with a canvas of paint for evidence.
I was relieved and astonished and it took me a good while to take it all in. I sat there in the field trying to realise the achievement of what just happened. Pushing boundaries and doing things with a dare-to-do attitude really does give you a unique outlook and perception of life on Earth….and beyond!

I’d love to see JoshingTalk Space Art featured in one of the big art galleries to inspire and engage other people and motivate them to define their creativity.
Also, seeing as nothing like this has ever been done before, it’s hard to put a value on the painting. It would be interesting to know what it’s worth financially speaking!
Whatever the value or outcome, I’m thinking about making prints of the art for you….see the pop out tab on the right of this page.

Where next?
I sat down with my good friend and mentor, Trudy Thompson of www.bricksandbread.com and we chatted about what I’d most like to do next. Of course, there’s no forgetting the Sir Richard Branson project and that actually coincides nicely with the run up to what I’d love to be doing.

JoshingTalk projects and adventures don’t have a physical or mental boundary and that prompted me to want to expand them. I’d like to team up with people or organisations to travel and explore the world, taking with me a range of JoshingTalk projects and working in unison with the cultures and hidden wonders of Earth to inspire, entertain and fuel the inner creativity in you.