Alexander Calder Inspired Sculptures
Today Nathan’s class explored balance, colour and shape by studying the art of Alexander Calder. Alexander Calder was a kinetic artist who created multi-layered, geometric mobiles. To start the day off we watched a short video tour of an Alexander Calder exhibition at National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. The students had a discussion about the materials, colours and design of Calder’s artworks. The students got very excited about Calder’s works which was lovely to observe.
We then visited the kids section of the Tate Modern website to look at some information about Calder. The Tate Modern website has a tonne of wonderful articles and activities for kids, I would recommend checking it out if you have the time.
The students learnt that Alexander Calder invented the mobile and that he made many floating structures inspired by shapes in nature. Before starting their own mobiles the students made sketches to plan out their designs and think about how they would get their structures to balance.
The students cut out their cardboard shapes, twisted the wire structure and used hot glue to connect the wire to the base. It was challenging twisting the wire tight enough to make sure that the shapes remained connected to the mobile. I was very proud of the way the students showed resilience and persevered with the task. The finished sculptures are great, everyone managed to make a mobile that was balanced and that moves freely in the wind. We had a little bit of time left after lunch so we made paper structures in the style of Calder’s stabiles. I had a fun day today and am looking forward to teaching this lesson to Thena’s class soon.
