A Psychedelic Evening

A few nights ago, I attended an opening celebration event for a Michigan based company started by a CCS alumni. This company has been picking up so much heat over the last few years, and is known as BLVisuals (Black Light Visuals). I had the opportunity to meet the co-founder of BLV, Brad Lawrence, a few years back and was ecstatic to hear that he was opening his first storefront in Clarkston, Michigan. I rounded up a few friends and drove out to the event where we arrived around 8:30pm. After finding a parking spot and entering the building, we were immediately in awe of all of the bright colors and patterns that surrounded us. Racks upon racks of individually dyed shirts, hats, shoes, hoodies, crop tops, and even sports bras and booty shorts filled the first room. And, much like the name suggests, everything was glowing under color changing black lights! They were even giving away some free shoes and shirts, and had a raffle drawing for two mystery boxes. 

 

Once we passed through the shop, we found the paint station, where they were doing free body painting. The line was long at this time so we decided to move on and come back later. I found Brad and said hello and introduced him to my friends. That's when we found a revolving door that looked like an old dark room door. All three of us fit into it comfortably, and we spun the painted, color changing door until we ended up on the other side in a new room. This room had a whole different vibe to it. It was more of a lounge, with tents and couches, as well as a live DJ and a table full of snacks. We grabbed some food and relaxed as we watched people spinning colorful hula hoops and batons.



After we had our fill, it was time to be painted  (finally!). We joined the line and waited patiently, talking with a few people int he meantime. We first had to soak our arms in a bucket of salt water solution and dry them so the paint would stick. Then we hopped into the paint station line, where the live painter would ask each person’s favorite color and add add some of their own choices to a large bucket. Once they were satisfied with the paint swirls, they would ask the “paintee" to slowly dip their arms in, palms up and then pull them out and into another bucket to rinse. Within seconds we had out very own custom paint job and went to dry off. We hung around a bit longer and waited until they raffled off the boxes (which unfortunately we did not win), and then made out way out for the night. Overall, it was a great experience! There was such a great crowd of people, and the
 atmosphere was one like I had never experienced before.

To check out more from BLVisuals and visit their store, go to blvisuals.com