On October 10, 2008, I gathered together with friends and strangers at the STL Arch to create “The World’s Biggest Belly Laugh under the Arch”.   Art-supporter/reporter Diane Keaggy from the Post-Dispatch had this to say:

Don’t ask how, but 29-year-old Lyndsey Scott found herself in a northern California nursing home taking a yoga class. And not your standard downward-facing-dog yoga class, but a laughter yoga class. One graying resident laughed so hard, her dentures popped out.

“What started off as forced laughter became this real laughter. We couldn’t stop,” recalled Scott. “It felt great.”

So Scott had an idea, one that appealed to her artistic sensibility and childlike spirit: What if she gathered her friends for one big belly laugh?

“Maybe the Hands Across America of my youth influenced me, but I believe when we gather together our bodies can become a monument,” said Scott, a painter and community activist.

Scott has found the perfect venue for her living art experiment: Artica, the arts festival that isn’t. Since 2002, artists have met in the industrial wilderness of the north St. Louis riverfront to build art installations and stage performance art. No souvenir T-shirts are sold, no food-on-a-stick consumed.

“It’s not that kind of a festival,” explained founder Nita Turnage. “There is no schedule because we’re never sure when the artists will show up. It’s really about letting your creativity flow, and that means being open to creating something yourself.”

The inspirational belly-chain.

I like tracing where ideas come from - - I was finishing up the Living Tree mural when a crew of kids came on a 'mission trip' to help out the church. These were their tee-shirts and on break they formed a belly laugh chain.