Hello! I am a 21 year old balloon artist from Los Angeles. I started twisting over ten years ago when I found a Marvin Hardy book at a garage sale and started  creating my own designs and sculptures. I remember making city-scapes with woven skyscrapers and little cars and airplanes. I guess you can say that balloon were my Legos.
In High School, I was embarrassed by the fact that I was making huge balloon sculptures in my room at home, so, for the sake of popularity I stopped creating Balloon Art.
On January 8th of 2009, I moved to Los Angeles from Florida to go to school, and I realized Los Angeles is so big that none of my friends had to know I made balloons
I started making balloons on the Santa Monica 3rd Street Promenade, a famous busking street. Slowly I starting making contacts with families and companies who hadn't ever experienced good balloon art before. And by the grace of God I started getting hired to do private events and work on movie production sets and at corporate events.  
Currently I have one year left of school, and this summer I will busk throughout Europe for a few weeks, using only what I earn from balloons on the streets. (if anyone has any thoughts on great places to busk in major European cities that you don't need a permit, it would greatly be appreciated!)

I am excited to be a more active part of this forum, and I am excited to learn from so many that have so much more experience than I have!
Attached Is a self portrait

Thanks,
Ben Gordon




www.bengordonballoons.com

Welcome to the forum Ben. Wow, what an early start in Balloons!

Hi Ben and welcome to the forum, it was nice reading how you started. Looking forward to seeing some more of your work.