Alexander Calder | The Direction of Intention

Stroll With Alexander [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on July 4, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

20 knew we needed a get-away. He suggested a stroll through Milwaukee’s Third Ward. Knowing it was our favorite, he offered to treat us to a bowl of gumbo and a glass of wine at The Public Market. It was a successful temptation. We chose a beautiful day and drove into the city.

Among the many gifts that day as we strolled in and out of shops was the very present spirit of Alexander Calder. Almost every shop we entered featured a mobile or some variation of sculpture suspended from the ceiling. Paper planes, vibrant lemons in tidy lines like a Sunny-Roman-legion on parade, colorful shapes and orbs delicately balanced and dancing in the air, casting shadows. All paying homage to the art work of Calder. My bet is that few of the shopkeepers knew the origin, the ancestry of their twirling displays.

Calder’s mobiles were radical when he made them. He changed our understanding of sculpture and opened a new world of possibilities. Nearly 50 years after his death, his innovation is commonplace. Incorporation into the norm is the hallmark of profound innovation. Computers are ubiquitous but when they first hit the scene they were revolutionary. Electric light, the telephone, automobiles, televisions, cameras, elevators, air conditioning…They change us. They change our expectation.

So, too, the work of artists. The Impressionists shocked and appalled their contemporaries when they initially showed their paintings. They did not know that they were Impressionists. They were reacting to the latest innovation-of-their-day known as the camera – a device that could easily record reality, important events, make portraits of royals… the job of painters – so they either had to explore new avenues of painting or become irrelevant. To our eyes, 150 years later, their work is anything but progressive or shocking. It is everywhere.

Artist not only change what we see, they change how we see. They challenge us to see what we do not yet see.

A-I is currently stirring our dust and is already being incorporated into the daily grind. The pace of change compresses the distance between the moment of profundity and incorporation into the everyday. The realities of the pace-of-change are, like the camera, changing the nature of what it means to make art.

It’s good to remind ourselves that it hasn’t always been this way. What’s twirling over my head is clever and is the ripple of a revolution. It’s why I loved my stroll with Alexander Calder through the Third Ward. 20 didn’t know it, but he gave me so much more than a getaway, a bowl of gumbo and a glass of wine.

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read Kerri’s blog about MOBILES

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Seeing | Tagged: Alexander Calder, ancestry, artistry, change, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, impressionists, innovation, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Milwaukee, mobile, origins, progress, progressive, revolution, sculpture, seeing, story, studio melange, the melange, The Public Market, The Third Ward | 1 Comment »

Make Better Assumptions [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on April 23, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

go away 1 copy

As a kid, riding up the mountain to Central City (long before it morphed into a casino town) to visit my great aunt Dorothy and uncle Del, I’d always look for the hermit. With my face pressed to the window I’d scan for him.

Perched precariously high above the creek, his shack seemed in constant danger of sliding down the mountain. The only thing holding it in place was the cascade of rusting bean cans that he’d tossed over the edge after each meal. Decades of cans. And, every once in while, I’d catch a glimpse of him.

He was uniquely grey; his clothes, his long miner-forty-niner beard, his pallor. He was always standing still, looking over the canyon. I don’t think in all of my rare glimpses that I ever saw him move. I wondered if he’d just thrown a can over the edge. I wondered if in his moments of standing-stillness he pondered how he came to be the hermit in the canyon. If life forged him into a hermit or if he came into the world wanting to be alone. I wondered where he got his cans of beans. It was a great mystery that I spent long hours considering. Hermits are not known for shopping trips into town and it was long before the age of home delivery. Where did he get his money to buy all of those cans? Was he a wealthy miner, a Howard Hughes type who retreated into a paranoid seclusion? Who facilitated his solitude?

I am mostly an introvert so his retreat from society fascinated me. I’d try ‘hermit’ on like a costume. He wasn’t a monk though I wondered what he did all day; contemplation had to be on the list of things to do. I wondered if his shack was filled with paintings or wire sculpture, a reclusive Alexander Calder? A disenfranchised artist (now, there’s an oxymoron!) I wondered if his shack walls were lined with good books.

I wondered, if I climbed up the mountain to his shack, would he meet me with a shotgun and tell me to go away? Or would he welcome me and tell me that he’s waited a lifetime for someone to come for a visit? I liked the second scenario but the realist in me knew it would be the first. He was grey because he didn’t want to be bothered. He was alone because it was not safe to be in relationship. It’s always easier to close the door and growl than it is to open it and ask, “Can I help you?”

We see this sign often. It marks the door of a house on the road to one of our walking trails. In the absence of a canyon I suppose the only thing to do is paste your anger on your door. Every time I see this sign I wonder what would happen if love came knocking?

read Kerri’s blog post about GO AWAY