This weekend, “The Cloud” is not the place to store your photos and music, but an installation by Torin Porter from Glover, VT. His seventh fest, Torin made chainsaw carvings at Camp Oswego from trees to create abstract dogs and chairs, while at Big Cypress, he dressed up as a character at an archeological site and encouraged curious fans to dig up and bury things. Most recently at Magnaball, Torin created the giant ears on stems that you could talk into, and stopped by with giant ear cleaners throughout the weekend to clean them out. Having seen how Phish fans interact with the art at festivals, he admires the celebration of everyone getting together and creates visual art that allows fans to have more stories that people can share. “The art just adds another layer to the experience everyone is celebrating together.” Here at Curveball, “The Cloud” is a 7 foot high, 12 foot long and 8 foot wide structure of painted fiberglass on a steel frame that is raised 10 feet off the ground, and has spiral curves going in and out of the cloud. Rain can be found coming out of the bottom of the cloud via blue poles, but also provides room for shade, playing to the dual purpose of clouds, with the overall structure an example of something that is physical, vaporous and ever changing.

Levi Bedall is contributing to his first Phish festival out of Providence, RI, having worked at Boston Calling earlier this summer. He brings with him three installations, ‘Handles,’ and two that he calls ‘Pneumatic Masonry,’ the former of which incorporates inflatables that are ‘sculptural blobs’ and ‘undulating experiments’ as Bedall puts it, allowing the inflatables to be what they want to be, instead of a natural spherical shape. There are six ‘Handles’ located in the festival grounds, which are white during the day but light up with LEDs at night. ‘Pneumatic Masonry’ will incorporate airtight inflatables – 3 foot wide beach balls in particular – and a net that holds them in place. Hexagonal cells will form a dome, while a 70 foot long/6 foot wide structure of these balls provides a unique but unintentional riff on the festival’s name. You can see more of Levi’s work at Pneu.haus.

And of course, what would a Phish festival be without Jim Pollock creating a poster for the event? For this year’s poster, Jim has an off the beaten track carnival feel that comes together as ‘Ride the Curveball,’ where he works with an intense color scheme that reminds him of Candy Crush colors. Jim also has three cardboard cutouts of fish playing baseball that are double-sided with holes at the top for hanging them up (they’re very kid-friendly). These die-cut figures are named Finnius, Ignatius and Shamus and can be purchased at the Waterwheel Foundation table (while supplies last!).

Jim will be printing on site this weekend and has his book-binding press, the same he had at The Great Went, on hand for demonstrations and signings. A taste of Jim’s previous festival work will also be on display, which has been featured at every Phish festival (except IT) and shines a light on the extensive work he has done over the course of the band’s career.

All these artists and many more work with Lars Fisk, Russ Bennett, Christy Gerhart and Phish’s production team to bring a deeper experience to the fans, combining the music of the festival with visual, spatial and performance art that makes the Phish festival experience unique for 22 years and counting.

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