BENTONVILLE, ARK.- As visitors walk through the galleries at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, they pass by multiple sculptures placed on pedestals to highlight the artwork. Unseen, inside each of those pedestals, a gift from Rogers-based Daisy Outdoor Products weights the base—BBs, bundled into 10-pound bags, are added to each sculpture pedestal to keep it secure.

“It’s a win-win solution,” said Joe Murfin, V.P. Public Relations for Daisy. “We donate spare bulk steel BBs, and the museum has a ready supply to use as ballast as needed.”

Over time, Daisy has donated three barrels of BBs, or approximately 6,000 pounds. “We weigh and measure the BBs into approximately 10 pound bags, and then tape up the sides to form a useable package,” said Crystal Bridges Lead Preparator Chuck Flook. “We typically place 10 to 15 bags in a sculpture pedestal, depending on the size of the casework and specific stability concerns.”

The BBs are also sewn into smaller muslin tubes or bags to help steady objects on display in the People and Places exhibition, a collaborative project that highlights objects from the collections of several museums from around the region, including the Daisy Airgun Museum. A bundle of BBs can be slipped inside a vase or other vessel on display to weight the base of the object and secure it against environmental vibrations.

The BBs were most recently used in setting up the temporary exhibition Surveying George Washington. “They’re inside a pedestal that displays a carved marble bust of George Washington,” says Flook. “If you wander our galleries though, you’ll see lots of pedestals—and Daisy BBs are used as the weight to secure them all.”

Daisy Outdoor Products is America's oldest and leading marketer of BB guns, air rifles and pistols, air rifle ammo and accessories. The company markets the most extensive product line of youth air guns, appropriate for ages ten and older under adult supervision, under the Daisy brand. CO2-powered, pistols and high velocity pellet and BB air rifles are marketed under the Power Line by Daisy brand. Additionally the company is the exclusive air gun licensee for Winchester Air Rifles, a line of adult air rifles and pistols, appropriate for target shooting and small game hunting. Daisy's line of training and match competition guns are marketed under the AVANTI brand. Daisy's shooting education curriculum is widely used by organizations which promote and teach gun safety and marksmanship. The company's prestigious Daisy National BB Gun Championship Match, held each summer in the company's home town, Rogers, Arkansas, is the largest 5-meter BB gun match, attracting, through a system of qualifying matches, the top teams from each state.