On Mobiles

As a sculptor I like it best when art and engineering come together. Both sides of my brain get a good workout. All sculptors, whether they know it or not, are using engineering to some degree. When they don’t, the piece breaks or falls apart. I like engineering as art. Another thing I like is sculpture that is not static. Things that change or move. I like the idea that every time I look at a sculpture it is different, or changing while I’m looking at it. Creating a mobile is essentially an engineering problem but not one solved with a calculator and a blueprint (unless you’re making a very large one). There’s a lot of intuition and experimentation involved. I do make sketches of ideas for mobiles so I don’t forget them. I have very good visualization skills and I do a lot of what-if designing in my mind’s eye. I can get quite obsessed with mobiles and spend entirely too much time thinking about them. In fact I don’t think they are ever completely out of my consciousness.
I’ve been fascinated by mobiles since I saw my first one as a child. It was a big red Calder at the Pittsburgh airport. It left a big impression on me. Since then I’ve mostly encountered them hanging over  baby cribs or as some cheesy discount store mobile involving birds, butterflies or airplanes. Anyone, even a child, can make a simple one. But if you take even a quick look at some of the mobiles Alexander Calder made you’ll see there are a lot of ways to make a mobile. (By the way, it’s a French word, pronounced, mow-BEEL)
Mobiles, as their name clearly states, move. No motors, no batteries, no pulleys or gears. They respond to air currents and gravity. They can be constructed so that they are constantly changing and never repeat their movements. There is one unavoidable, uncompromising collaborator working with me on these mobiles: gravity. If you don’t do what she likes, she breaks things. She never lets go of a mobile but she does let the wind play with it.
Building a mobile is an interesting process. It is difficult, in most cases, to make an exact plan for a mobile. I usually start with only a rough idea based on whatever materials I have to work with. From then on, I more or less ad-lib. Often I get something different than I started out to make, and sometimes, even better. Making mobiles will give you an intimate understanding of how to use gravity, leverage, balance, range of movement, mass, center of gravity, and inertia. Mobiles can hang from a ceiling or a wall, or they can balance on a pivot point or ball on some kind of stand. That stand could, and in my opinion should, be able to stand on its own as a sculpture. The non-hanging pivot-point on-a-stand type is the one I prefer to make even though they are harder to make than the hanging type.
One secret to making a mobile is to build it from the bottom up. That way everything below the point where you are working remains in unchanged. There are exceptions but in most cases this is true. Mobiles also don’t have to be perfectly balanced and often look better if they are not. Heavy materials are good for outdoor pieces because their mass makes them more graceful in the wind, and can stand up to very stiff winds. Indoor mobiles require very light materials so that they will respond to the more subtle air currents inside a building. There are also considerations to be made for how much movement you want to allow for the mobile’s arms and/or the elements at the ends of those arms. You might, or might not want parts of the mobile to collide with other parts. With restricted movement, when a swinging arm comes to the end of its range of movement, its kinetic energy is transferred to the arms connected directly above and below it, causing them to move. A good mobile won’t get tangled with itself, or jam. A good mobile is a good composition, even as it changes. A good mobile fits its environment. I like building these things and letting its environment play with it.
I’ve designed some unusual mobiles. Two anti-gravity mobiles; one with balloons, one using floats under water. I couldn’t resist designing the giant, full-size, auto-mobile, using cars, trucks and buses. Then there’s the super-simple but poignant; a small log balanced on a point, with a toy soldier at either end, each pointing a rifle at the other. Any way I can employ balance and movement in the same piece, I’m looking for a way to make it happen. I’ve designed many more than I could ever build. I don’t care for the cliché mobiles like birds, airplanes, fish, leaves and things like that. Let somebody else make those. You can see some of my mobiles on my web site. Tesserak Studios: Mobiles