In the 70's I discovered the mobiles of Alexander Calder and became fascinated with the idea of art that moves. Art so delicate that a small breath will set the pieces in motion. Blowing on one of these made me feel like a God. In some strange twist though I only knew about the mobiles. It took 10 years for me to discover the work that he created in counterpoint to the mobiles known as stabiles - large megalithic pieces of sheet metal painted in primary colors that seemingly bent and swayed, but were deeply rooted in place. That made me love Calder even more. The idea that one artist could create pieces celebrating both movement and non-movement held my thoughts.
Today I got up and did something I never do. I flicked on the TV while I ate breakfast. Images of the earthquake in rural China and Tibet half a world away from me pouring out of that box until all I could do is sit with my cereal bowl in my lap and cry. Maybe that is why I don't watch so much television anymore. The images are so real. So powerful. So gut wrenching that they take my heart and make it for that moment a mobile. The gust of air set in motion by a seemingly heartless Creator who would allow such suffering is enough to make it spin crazily and threaten to come flying apart. (Anyone with mobile building experience knows they are devilishly hard to get balanced and they tend to come apart easily). But it never does. The balance of heart pieces fly about and then come back to rest set slightly askew from where they started. Perhaps with slightly different points of view than where they started as well.
Calder's works are all about balance. So, today I breathe in the fear of shifting Earth and exhale the balance of Calder's stabile Terre des Hommes to a world that seems to need it.
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