How to make an abstract mobile (PopSci 1954)
Over at Dinosaurs and Robots, Kevin Kidney found an article from a 1954 issue of Popular Science on how to make an abstract mobile. I love the fact that PopSci had articles like this. I want to try making one!
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How can I make an abstract stabile?
Just a week ago it me older brother's birthday, plus I owed him a housewarming gift for his new home, and since he had expressed a desire for a windchime, I made him a cobination mobile / windchime / birdhouse to hang on his otherwise empty porch.
He's pretty noise sensitive, so I wanted to use bamboo tubes. Our sirname is often affiliated with pirates, so I included a pirate ship, and he's quite proud of our Swedish lineage, hence the Svenska flag. It doesn't show in the picture, but in the back of the boat is an old pirate doubled over the rail; seasick, no doubt.
It was way too much trouble, but he loves it.
Here it is:
http://pixpipeline.com/d/86d91745d470.jpg
@1: Use this for inspiration: http://www.nga.gov/education/classroom/counting_on_art/bio_calder.shtm
Imagineers have the coolest names. Harper, X Atencio, how I wish I could be a imagineer, but I'm stuck with the most popular name of 1982.
I have always liked Calders' stuff, IIRC he did some really big ones, in public spaces.
PopSci still has tons of awesome DIY content-- and a smart, entertaining site. PopSci.com. Check it out.
There's a Calder in the National Gallery in DC that is simply GINORMOUS. Story goes, probably apocryphal, that the atrium gallery of the modern wing was built to the dimensions it's built to specifically to allow the thing to swing unencumbered. It's massive and graceful, and it cuts through the space it hangs in like a 2,500 pound wrought iron knife. It's big enough (and yet curvy and sensuous enough) that it looks like it couldn't've possibly been made by humans. It owns the space.
Here's a video. Not mine and kinda grainy, but you'll get the idea.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5552815781795311388
One of the things that I'm really fortunate to be able to do is to see and enjoy some of Calder's mobiles on a weekly (sometimes daily) basis. Eight of them hang at in our University Library and in our University Fine Arts building (both about two miles from where I live). As I'm trying to finish my doctoral dissertation, naturally I spend quite a bit of time at the library there.
edit: (I posted before doing any research on the thing)
1. The Calder weighs 920 pounds, not 1500
2. It's made out of aluminum, not wrought iron
3. It was built for the gallery, not the other way 'round.
Still my favorite place in DC
There's similar instructions on Wikihow.
Alexander Calder needs to get credit for this.
This is part of a longer article in the December 1954 issue of Pop Sci.
Thanks to Google Books, you can read the entire article online:
http://books.google.com/books?id=1yADAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0_0#PRA1-PA196,M1
If you were to try to print out the plans from this article and at http://www.dinosaursandrobots.com/2009/03/how-to-make-abstract-mobile.html
TAKE NOTE that when printed, the sizes of the pieces, or squares are not the noted sizes.
For instance, one of the pieces says that it is 1 1/2" x 5". When printed it is smaller than that.
Yes, I double checked my printer settings to make sure that it wasn't set to "fit to page".
Just FYI.
And Inkadinka12, The "8 Strange Tales of TV Antenna Troubles" on that page was no slouch either. Thanks!
I was going to say that also #11 Jack, did the article credit Calder? Even though these things appear generic (you see a lot of imitation) they are definitely derived from Calder's work. Which I love by the way and was able to see some in the Montreal Art Gallery.
For what it's worth, Calder didn't suffer these kinds of mass imitations very well.
From a certain perspective, it's like doing a paint by number of a woman with a slight smile and calling it a Mona Lisa.
I remember beig mesmerised by the vast Calder mobile/kinetic sculpture if you'd prefer, that was in building 7 of the WTC in New York.
This was back in 92/3 and I was just staggered by the size and grace of the thing.
I presume it was always there so was destroyed on September the Eleventh, I would say i hope not but it seems the least thing to concern yourself with on that particular day.
If you want to see more Calder type NEW mobiles go here: http://www.humboldt1.com/~mobiles/ Lots of different styles and designs.
@ FreakCitySF: Would that be "Michael?"
http://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager#prefix=MICHAEL&ms=true&sw=m&exact=true
Calder was the first artist to make the art of mobiles famous. Just like many painters, cermasists, sculpters, glass blowers, etc... there had to be a first who started the style. People learn just like at school, math, music, english and take their new knowledge from that point. It is not that artists now days COPY Calder, it is the knowledge of the how to and what they are doing to make their own creations. Just as valuable as a Calder, new artists making mobiles today will be famous for their time in art in the future.