After a trip to the Art Institute of Chicago when I was in eighth grade, and having been a fan of Alexander Calder's work for years before that, I was inspired to try making an abstract mobile of my own. It came together much better than I had expected, and from then until my second year of college, I had a nice little part-time business making and selling mobiles on commission and through a few local art galleries.
Most of these mobiles are made from balsa wood and birch dowels, which keeps the pieces light enough to move in the slightest breeze, but on occasion I've used other lightweight materials like styrofoam and paper mache.
Originally painted a solid shade of red, this piece was nearly destroyed during a home remodeling project, so I rebuilt what was left and gave it a new paint job in the process. Considering the mobile's history and its new flame-like color scheme, the choice of title seemed obvious.
plant mobile
Date:
July 1995
Media/tools:
acrylic paint, balsa wood, birch dowels, string
This piece was intended to resemble something like a cross between a philodendron and a pothos houseplant. With nearly thirty moving parts, this is both my most complex mobile and my personal favorite. At six feet tall, though, it's also beastly difficult to photograph.
spontaneous combustion
Date:
November 1992
Media/tools:
acrylic paint, balsa wood, birch dowels
Like my phoenix mobile, this is another piece that got crushed during construction and was rebuilt. I am of two minds about whether I prefer the new color scheme or the original version.
A large mobile, about 6 feet in diameter, made from styrofoam.
the not-a-hierarchy
Date:
November 1992
Media/tools:
acrylic paint, birch dowels, styrofoam
Another large styrofoam mobile, about 5 feet tall and 6 feet wide. I've completely forgotten the significance of the title, if there was any.
wood mobile
Date:
July 1995
Media/tools:
balsa wood, birch dowels, stain, varnish
Most people don't realize that my mobiles are made out of wood (as opposed to metal, I suppose), so I decided to stain and varnish this one in order to illustrate that fact. I used three different colors of stain for variety, and it was surprising what an attractive finish you can get from balsa wood.
A failed experiment as a mobile, but I've gotten a lot of milage out of the design, which I've reused as a personal logo and in the design of this website, amongst other things. As the name implies, this mounts on the wall instead of hanging from the ceiling. The idea was that each plate would be mounted on each other so that they could pivot into different configurations in the wind, but some petty "laws of physics" made my original artistic vision impossible to realize. The yellow section in front is the only piece that moves now.
The design is an impression of a sunset, by the way. Truly I am a deep artistic thinker, and not at all prone to using trite imagery.
