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The forecast for this year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade? Partly cloudy.
The iconic holiday parade announced the new additions to its balloon lineup earlier today and leading the puffy pack is one adorable little cloud called, wait for it… Little Cloud.
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The floating figure was designed by the artist collective FriendsWithYou and is the latest entry in Macy’s Blue Sky Gallery series, an ongoing initiative that invites prominent artists to design the parade’s balloons. Past participants have included Tom Otterness, Jeff Koons, Keith Haring, Takashi Murakami, KAWS and Tim Burton, who provided an especially spooky little number.
“We are delighted to continue to bring high art to the skies of New York City, with the addition of Little Cloud by FriendsWithYou to the Parade’s acclaimed Blue Sky Gallery series,” said Susan Tercero, executive producer of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. “Little Cloud will join a rarefied lineup of high flying art, which has previously seen works by some of the world’s most renowned contemporary artists.”
Little Cloud is a central image in much of FriendsWithYou artworks over the years. The character is meant to represent “light, tranquility and unconditional love with a soft power radiating positivity and lightheartedness.” The not-so-little cloud will be accompanied by some rain drop friends and a rainbow as it makes its big journey through midtown later this month.
“The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has always been a big inspiration for our work. One of the first art experiences we created was Skywalkers, our own version of the parade during Art Basel 2006,” said FriendsWithYou Co-Founders Samuel Borkson and Arturo Sandoval III. “We are so grateful for this opportunity to spread goodness to everyone who sees Little Cloud, and to share once again an iconic symbol of love with as many people as possible.”
Other new balloons that will be added to this year’s procession include depictions of Goku from Dragon Ball and Macy’s very own new character Sunny the Snowpal, an astronaut snowman. You can see this year's full balloon lineup here!