America One Spoke At a Time: World's Largest Ball of Paint

An installment of American Roadside Attractions

Attraction: World’s Largest Ball of Paint

Location: Alexandria, IN

Date Visited: May 21, 2018

Signage for World's Largest Ball of Paint

Our first response when we read about Mike Carmichael’s 5,000-pound ball of paint was the same reaction you just had when you read this sentence. “Get outta here!” The ball of paint, on which we applied coat 26,020, started in 1977 with Mike encouraging his small son to paint a baseball blue. Well if one is going to paint a baseball, one coat just will not do.

Mike is a professional painter, so extra paint was always at the ready. Family members including his wife Glenda soon shot past 5,000 coats of paint then 10,000 and so on. The paint company Sherwin-Williams provided him with sufficient sponsorship for one year so the ever-increasing ball of paint could be housed in a stand-alone building suspended from steel I-beams. The sheer weight of the suspended “ball” has deformed it to an oblong shape.

Mike and Helen painting the ball

A photo of a core sample taken by the folks from the Guinness Book of World Records was used to validate the ball’s authenticity so it could be entered into the record book.

To call Mike’s ball of paint a “roadside attraction” is to torture the term “roadside.” We travelled quite a distance from our interstate route, down two miles of dirt road until we hit another paved highway and then Mike’s house.

Ball of Paint in Building on the Left

The standalone paint ball building is next to the Carmichael’s home. As we drove up Mike and Glenda came out and unlocked building. Mike shared some small talk. He pointed to the long list of countries from which earlier painters hail and statistics on the number of times a particular color had been used. There was every expectation that we “came to paint.” He asked, “What color do you want to use?” The ball, now orange, was still tacky from the last painters. We were the third that day.

Helen Pointing to our Name on the Wall

We gleefully applied our green paint with small rollers on long handles. It took about 15 minutes with Mike adding some assistance.

When we finished we signed the guest book and were dutifully given personalized certificates attesting to our application of layer 26,020. Helen then added our names near the ceiling of an interior wall of the building.

When we left we had to clean some green paint off of Nando’s tail. It appears he wanted a piece of the painting action as well.