In 1966 I began experimenting with inflatable sculpture. At the time it was rather new. There was an atmosphere in New York of exploring new media and new forms. The inflatables fit into those categories. At first I thought I wanted to design some inflatable objects and find a manufacturer to make them. Most manufacturers I contacted who made inflatable products made inflatable toys for pool play. They wanted to make my sculptures, but they wanted orders in the thousands if they were to be interested.
I bought a small heat sealing machine so that I could experiment with making inflatables myself. I did make a few pieces that I was able to show in galleries in New York. I wanted to make inflatables in many colors, but to do that I needed to have vinyl of different colors. Because I didn’t have much money, I thought it would be practically impossible for me to do. Then I thought if I bought clear vinyl and painted it with acrylic paint I could get all kinds of colors, even those that were not available in vinyl sheets.
I had another benefit with this method. If I painted one side of the clear sheet and left the other side clear, when I sealed the inflatable with the painted side on the inside the outside surface would be shiny and smooth. To create a polished surface on a solid sculpture would take hours of sanding and polishing. With my inflatables I could paint the vinyl, heat seal it, and inflate it and the surface would be shiny and smooth. That was my innovation, but I still wanted some manufacturer to make the inflatable for me.
At Rutgers I had a friend who was from India. He was interested in the art scene at the school. After graduation he still kept in touch with me. He began selling products from India to stores in New York. One day he came to visit me in my loft as I was working on my inflatables. I told him how I felt about finding a manufacturer. He asked me to make a few product samples that he could take around to show the shops in Manhattan he sold to. I made him a few inflatable pillows and some tote bags using my technique of reverse coloring.
The pillows sold wildly. They were small colorful, shiny objects that cost one dollar. We formed a company called Mass Art Inc. and contracted a silk screening company and a heat sealing one to manufacture our products. Within one year and a half we were selling over a million dollars worth of products.
Later on, my partner fearing that we were going to be competing with Asian manufacturers, we developed our own factory and employed some 250 employees.
During the rush to success, someone asked me to design an inflatable chair, which I did, and it became the first commercially available inflatable chair. A production model of the chair is now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Â
