“Are you okay with heights?” a staff member at The Estate on Townsend Avenue asked Celeste Coleman, looking up into the sunlight, as she prepared to scale an eight-foot ladder.  Coleman, the founder of Connecticut Balloons, had been hired to create a cascading garland leading into the state ly 1804 mansion. The occasion: the first annual Black Summer, an afternoon jubilee that — as event co-coordinator Angel Dahfay put it — was “centered around rest and a celebration of Black culture.”  Along with a curated lunch from The Luke’s Chef Vincent Chirico, the early-September event included craft cocktails from Anchor Spa, cigars from Broadleaf Collective, and lively music on the impeccably manicured grounds.  For the Gatsby-esque affair, “I opted for rich brown,” said Coleman, now returned to her van. She’d been up into the wee hours pre-blowing balloons in her rented Milford warehouse, a trick she learned at one of the classes in which she enrolled after entering the business five years ago. “I was meeting people from all over the place and watching what they were doing and I said to myself, I can do this too,” she said, as she lifted another bouquet from the cargo bay. To hear Coleman tell it, balloons were never part of the plan. She was working as an oncology technician at St. Raphael’s Hospital. “It was a job to support my family,” said the single mother of three. In about her eighth year there, a woman was finishing her treatments. As she did with many of the patients, Coleman gave her a flower arrangement she had made from her garden. “You have a gift,” the patient told her. “Life is short, you need to go follow your dreams.” Connecticut Balloon’s Celeste Coleman with five-inch balloons she uses to create dimension for her installations. Then, she said, she heard it, all the other patients who had remarked on the beauty of her arrangements. She remembered how she had been sought out, while growing up on Winthrop Avenue, for her artistry in styling her friends’ hair.  From there, she started small, with gigs for birthday parties and fundraisers on the weekends. She thrived. She gave notice to St. Raphael’s. Soon her event planning business was born. “I never looked back,” she said. One afternoon, a balloon vendor she had hired failed to show up for an event. “I did it myself, and I was like ‘whoa, I can do this, and this is really fun,’” she said, hopping back on the ladder and tucking an errant balloon into place. She enrolled in classes, in New York, in New Jersey, in Georgia — investing in herself, her future, finding, she said, “how it just came naturally to me.”  Just then, Laresha Goodwin approached. The founder of Party Divas, an event planning company known for their backdrops, staging, and florals, Goodwin and her husband Amos often partner with Coleman. “We back each other up,” Coleman said.  “That’s right,” said Black Summer co-coordinator Renee Brown, owner of Trachouse Beauty Salon, who had just arrived. “There’s always something to celebrate in life, and we’re here to give those celebrations a sense of occasion.”  Brown, who hired Connecticut Balloons for the event, said she spotted Coleman’s ingenuity at a baby shower a few years ago. “Right away, I knew she had it.”  Connecticut Balloon’s Celeste Coleman with Freddy Fixer president Reese McLeod at Freddy Fixer awards gala in June. She’s not alone. At the Freddy Fixer awards gala in June, Coleman was recognized with the Business Award for “transforming ordinary spaces into extraordinary experiences, from legacy-defining corporate events to upscale weddings to landmark birthdays.”  There was also mention of The Balloon Blueprint, an educational balloon experience she created to empower aspiring entrepreneurs “to turn their talent into income and their ideas into ownership.”   “I mentor a lot of ladies that are pursuing this career,” she said, as she fitted five-inch balloons in and around the larger ones for dimension. “They call me, they ask me questions. I’m not a gatekeeper. I’m here for them. Because there’s enough room for all of us.”  “You belong in every room you enter, even the ones you weren’t invited into,” she said she tells them, highlighting one mentee, Twonisha Wright, who now adorns her medical practice with balloon arrangements on special occasions. “And if there’s space for you at that table, walk in confidently and make room for others too. Hold your head high. The work will always speak for itself.” Recently, she said, she was called on to create an installation for a funeral repast. “I feel like as of late I would even consider this like a ministry,” she said, as she interwove flowers through the balloons seemingly rippling down a pillar. “Spectacular,” said a woman in a group of dressed-to-the-nines party-goers who had just arrived.  She thanked her and then paused, regarding the grounds, the fountain, the sprawling lawns. “What a beautiful canvas,” she said. “To be able to do this is a gift.” Black Summer partygoer posing with Connecticut Balloons installation. Courtesy: Celeste Coleman The post Balloon Biz Owner Soars To New Heights  appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less