You may have seen the storefront on 2nd St. filled with workers in coveralls, their workshop littered with pink paper and bottles. The spartan headquarters of the Pink Love Factory stands in stark contrast to the modern shops that proliferate the shopping district. You have probably wondered what the hell is going on in this place filled with bicycles, jump suits, pink construction paper and smiling artisans. Well, after consuming our weight in gelato from Paciugo after dinner last night, our curiosity finally got the best of us, so we stopped in to see what the story was.

After we stumbled into her domain, craft boss Heffi (aka Jaclyn Prior) led us on a tour of the facility that works as a public art project functioning as a part of First Night Austin. Dutiful minions of Love working an assembly line, cramming tiny rolled-up love notes into glass bottles, pink jumpsuits, groovable music pumping out of a Mac…as the rain drizzled outside, we started to get the sneaking suspicion that someone may have dosed our Chocolate-Chocolate Chip.

What we (joyfully) discovered was a dedicated team of little Cupids facilitating romance and platonic-love for Austinites. A group of folks happy to hold your hand as they explain to you their mission of spreading love for free, bottled note by bottled note, around our fair city. What we discovered was Pink.

We interrogated a few of the workers (Kennedy, Half in the Bag, Poppy, Walter and Climate – a young lady who had traveled from Paris just to take part in this labor of love) then sat down with foreman Heffi (whom we have interviewed previously abut her project Floodlines) to discuss the mission of Pink.

Austinist: What is your background in conceptual/community arts?

Heffi: Well, my first disciplinary home is theatre, so my aesthetic sensibilities come out of that tradition primarily, specifically physical theatre, visual theatre, & spectacle. Scale is very interesting to me, and I like to make projects that are hard to wrap the head around, that operate on a large scale, that are logistical nightmares, but fantastical because of it. Pink is a logistical nightmare, so the fact that it works becomes part of the spectacle, part of how the project makes meaning, fascinates, intrigues (hopefully). And, as time passes, my work seems to have become more and more conceptual--less words, fewer scripts, less clear lines between performance and everyday life. And because I like to work on big ideas, community engagement becomes a necessary component in the work.

How long have you been in Austin?
I've been here 4 1/2 years. I moved here from New York in 2002.

When did you conceptualize Pink Love?

I began thinking about pink in little ways probably about a year ago. I'm a big fan of Christo and Jean Claude, and I wanted to do a project that engages color, that saturates the city, that's viral. So I began with pink, the color, and built it from there.

What was your inspiration? What is the overriding concept/purpose?

I'm inspired by lots of things. Most of all, though, I'm fascinated with work, with labor as spectacle, as beauty. We work all day, and do unbelievable things, incredible things, even beautiful things, but so much of our labor is obscured. All we see is products, and parts. I wanted to do a project that exposed labor, that made a spectacle of it, that opened the process up to the public eye and invited the public behind the scenes.

And so began the idea for the love factory, which, to me, is even more interesting than the bottles, the love notes, themselves. Work is love. Not to mention the encounter between the love couriers and the Austinite to whom s/he is delivering love. What a fabulous encounter between strangers -- a private performance on a doorstep. Someone has biked across town to the home of someone they don't even know to let them know they are loved by someone else. I'm impressed by that gesture. It moves me. So I wanted to stage it. And, at the same time, make it real.

Continue the interview and check out a video clip of the goings-on at the Love Factory after the jump.

When did you take the idea to First Night and how did you pitch it to them?

I proposed it at the beginning of the summer. At first, First Night was interested in my doing Bread again (Bread is the project I did for First Night last year, which involved the mass distribution of 2006 round loaves of bread in the middle of the night prior to New Year's Eve day). Pink was pitched as a sequel of sorts to Bread. I told them Pink was the new Bread and they went for it. The project was officially commissioned by First Night in the Fall, and it's actually underwritten (read: paid for) by the Still Water Foundation.

What do you hope to achieve with the project?

Contagion. I want love to spread. And for Austin to become pink. We have a map projected on the wall of the love factory, and we've marked all the spots to which we've delivered with pink--according to our map, Austin is becoming very pink, and that's exciting.

Where/how did you get your factory workers?

People recruited people who recruited people. It's really incredible, because everyone is a volunteer. I'm working with wonderful, inspiring, hilarious, and dedicated people: artists, bikers, activists, artist-biker-activists. The project would be nothing without all these fabulous people, who really are running the show. I'm just there to make sure things run smoothly, but all the work is everyone else.

How did you go about acquiring the space?

We asked! I noticed that there was an empty storefront on 2nd, and I inquired about it. Amli, who's the leasing agent for the downtown area, donated it to us for the month. Very nice.

Have you had any fun/interesting match/success stories with the project?

I'm amazed every time a bottle makes it to the right home. I was a love courier one day--Christmas day, actually--and every time I found a house and delivered a bottle and the name on my list matched the name of the person answering the door, or on the mailbox or what not, I was thrilled. Because we're artists, we're not real couriers, but we're doing it, it's working! What else . . . we had some steamy rendezvous between lovers at the love factory last weekend. And some very sweet notes -- from parents to kids and kids to parents, and lovers, and cousins, and coworkers, and neighbors. People are taking the love courier service seriously, which is heartening. It's whimsical, but it's also an opportunity for people to get deep with each other. And they're doing it. And saucy, too. Un-success story: Gov. Rick Perry refused his love note. He's the only one. And we've sent over 1400 at this point. His note is pinned on the wall, with a few other love notes that failed to make it to their destination for various reasons. We call it our wall of lost love.

What's your next artistic/creative project?

In April, I'll be staging Floodlines again, the annual, multi-site specific performance installation in Hyde Park, which I directed. And I'm working with my friend Abe Burickson on a project tentatively called Movable Feast--which will be in may. Oh, and I'm going to investigate funding for taking pink on tour to other cities.

Thanks for your time. Keep spreadin' the Pink love.

Thank you.

Whether you’ve got a special someone in mind to whom you’d like to express your love in a bottle or whether you’re just the curious sort who loves whimsy and watching people do something that moves them, stop into Pink today or tomorrow; we promise you’ll get a kick out of it and may even be a little touched by the whole spectacle. But get down there soon: Saturday is the last day they will be taking orders, with final deliveries going out Sunday.

And come First Night Austin, join the love couriers, love factory workers and all of the pink Austin in marching in the Grand Processional Parade on Congress Avenue. There will be a meet-up between 4 & 5pm. Look for sign #8. Bring a bike, if you have one and wear pink.

Pink
237 2nd St.
Friday: 5pm-9pm
Sautrday: 11am-10pm

[pink blog site and on Myspace]