“This story started with a promise I made to my daughter Jenifer Peña, who by then was only 10 years old, one time we were on vacation in a mall in the US, in a balloon twisting spectacle, she loses the opportunity to have a Bugs Bunny figure in a draw, then she gets really sad, so sad she started crying heartbroken.

A few days passed, in another mall and with the Bugs Bunny figure in my mind I realized a store was selling a kit for making balloon figures, with an air pump and a catalogue for beginners. Of course, I bought the kit and started practicing making balloon figures every weekend, I continued learning until I could make the figures that my daughter wanted, including Bugs Bunny one, that’s how I fulfilled my promise.

So in every one of her birthdays I made balloon figures for her and her friends. When the parents noticed this, considering this is not common in Maracaibo (The city I lived in) and because it was striking, I was invited alongside my daughter to a lot of birthdays, so I would make the children balloon figures. I began making a name for myself until an invitation became a contract, going from balloon twisting to large-scale balloon installations, among those, façades, sculptures and ambient for the biggest malls in Maracaibo.

Nowadays, my daughter and my son-in-law specialized also in this area, and my passion for balloon art continues, because I have three younger sons, Emmanuel, Santiago and Elio Isaac, and a granddaughter named Jade, who get as excited for balloon figures as my daughter did 20 years ago”. - Orlando Peña