It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s a 40-foot float.

PAONIA, Colo. —  Rather than feeling defeated after a group of LGBTQ+ Paonia residents faced backlash for hanging rainbow flags around town, Paul Kimpling wanted the group to come back better, stronger and much, much bigger.

In 2022, Kimpling and a group of friends worked with residents and businesses in Paonia, a small town about 70 miles east of Grand Junction tucked in the Grand Mesa National Forest, to hang 16 flags around downtown.

Though the responses were mainly positive, Kimpling said a small group of outspoken anti-LGBTQ+ residents complained about the flags and personally removed many. One year later, Kimpling said town officials told him the group could not hang Pride flags on public buildings because the backlash would be too risky.

Stefyn Wynn, Paonia’s town manager, said the Pride flags sewed division between different nonprofits in town and town administrators opted to implement an across-the-board policy limiting flags to private businesses, not public spaces.

“Knowing that there was the rift between the different nonprofits in town, it kind of drew the larger community into this issue on what you can and can’t display,” Wynn said. “Ultimately, the town didn’t make any sort of decisions other than business owners can put anything on their building as long as it doesn’t encroach into the public right of way.”

Wynn emphasized that flags of all sorts — not just Pride flags — are prohibited from public rights-of-way and public buildings.

“The town hasn’t taken a stand in any way and we won't,” Wynn said. “That’s an issue that anybody is able to show what they want to do and we'll stay out of that, we tell ppl what they can and can't do.”

Instead of taking the hurdles as a sign to keep their heads down and live in silence, the group returned with something no one could destroy: a 40-foot float to feature in Paonia’s largest event — the Cherry Days parade.

“I think it's interesting how art can say things that words can’t,” Kimpling said. “In response to the flags and the negativity that was heard about gay people in general in this small town, I think having some kind of big art piece like this just said something really powerful.”

Kimpling and a few friends thought up Bubbles — the float’s official name — after seeing other displays of the town’s agricultural pride at the annual Paonia Cherry Days.

After 100 volunteers came together to shape 4,000 aluminum cans together (more than twice the town’s population), into Bubbles–a rainbow-colored Trout in honor of the region’s renowned Trout fishing.

Residents collected the aluminum cans from restaurants and then used chicken wire from local farms to hang them together and create the Bubbles float, which is also a puppet.

Volunteers gathered every Saturday at The Learning Council — an educational hub serving marginalized communities in the North Fork Valley — for months as they cut, cleaned and sorted cans into colors of the rainbow. Kimpling said the experience brought members of the LGBTQ+ community and their allies from across the area together, creating a newfound sense of belonging.

Kristen O’Brien, a Paonia resident who helped build Bubbles, said returning with something even more visible following the backlash against the flags felt emblematic of previous LGBTQ+ movements — from the Stonewall Riots to those protesting anti-queer legislation around the country.

“It felt like a good, positive move to defiantly if it’s not with the town, we’re not just going to give up,” O’Brien said. “We’re going to continue to find a way to celebrate here."

O’Brien said having something so visible in a rural community not known for a large LGBTQ+ presence brought an added layer of celebration.

“There was something about bringing Bubbles out in a rural community where there isn’t much visibility that was just really special,” said O’Brien.

Bubbles debuted in the 2023 Paonia Cherry Days parade, held each July 4. 

The float has also appeared in other rural Pride celebrations, but the group’s volunteers have big dreams for its lifespan.

Bubbles’ fans dream of it marching in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York and maybe even overseas, though they hope to always honor its rural roots.

“A beautiful, shiny rainbow trout and the message is that if you’re a teenager and you’re wondering if you’re alone being queer in this area, you see this is being represented in art and there are people marching alongside you,” said Stuart Seuatkramer, a Paonia resident who helped build Bubbles.