Technical Behind-the-Scenes Aspects of Designing, Making and Installing a Large Custom Mobile

Some of the technical (“behind the scenes”) aspects of designing, making and installing a large custom mobile.

Design:
Proposing a variety of designs to the client (see the full render designs).

Site inspection.

Planning:
Creating the 3d model of the space and the sculpture. Making adjustments to ensure that as the kinetic sculpture rotates and moves with the air currents, it will always remain out of reach from the various floors.

Image of Suspended Art Installation

Image of Hanging Art Installation

Establishing the engineering data.

Image of Large Scale Sculpture Engineering Data

Fabrication:
Preparing the file containing the shapes (Calder style/inspired with this specific design chosen by the client) for laser cutting.

Image of Calder Style Mobile Shapes Laser Cut

Custom made knurled pins pressure fitted with a 10-ton press.

Photo of Kinetic Art Mobile

Verification:
Confirming that all the balance points have been calculated correctly, in other words, reality needs to confirm theory (with the help of a crane).

Photo of Large Mobile Sculpture

Transport:
Keeping it safe from vertical shocks caused by bumps and potholes as it’s transported (in this case) 500 miles / 800 km across the Appalachian Mountains.

Photo of Large Sculpture Commission Transport

Installation:
Planning the layout of the mobile parts on the installation lift, so the overall 33 foot sculpture can be raised through the 22 by 15 foot opening in the atrium from the ground floor to the upper floors.

Image of Hanging Atrium Sculpture Installation

Image of Hanging Lobby Sculpture Installation

See the finished and installed mobile.

See more of my large custom mobile projects.

9 Original Calder Works Coming to Auction for the First Time

A group of nine works by Alexander Calder will be sold at Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction in New York on May 10th 2016. All of them were made by Calder in 1955 while visiting Ambalal Sarabhai’s family estate in India. Calder spent three weeks at the secluded 20-acre estate, in a makeshift studio constructed in the garden with “a water-buffalo lady and a calf” for company, as he wrote in his book (Calder: An autobiography with pictures, 1966). This is the first time this group of Calder sculptures is coming to auction. Among the works to be auctioned:

Sumac #17
Hanging Mobile
Sheet metal, wire and paint
Inspired by the flowering plant of the same name
Estimated at US$4 million to US$6 million
[Update: Price Realized $5,765,000]

Photo of Original Hanging Mobile Sculpture Calder Sumac

Related: Watch a 360-degree view of Calder’s large red mobile Sumac created in 1961.

How the visit to India came about, in Calder’s own words: “In 1954, I received a letter from a young Indian woman, Gira Sarabhai, youngest of eight children of a large wealthy family in Ahmedabad, which is somewhere halfway between Bombay and Delhi. She offered Louisa and me a trip to India, if I’d consent to make some objects for her when there. I immediately replied yes.”

Calder in India in 1955 (Louisa Calder, his wife, is seated atop the elephant):

Photo of Calder India Mobiles For Sale

Estimates range as high as US$10 million, with a total pre-sale estimate of around US$26 million to US$38 million.

Read The forgotten journey of Alexander Calder and view the e-Catalogue. Also see An Expert Look at Never-Before-Auctioned Alexander Calder Works and Mobile Revolution.

– Read more of my blog about mobiles or see some of my mobiles –

Custom Mobile Art Project for the Rotunda at Titus Elementary School

Custom mobile project for the rotunda at Titus Elementary School in Warrington, PA.

The design is based on the school’s PAWS award (pictured below). PRIDE is an acronym for P-Pride, R-Respect, I-Individual, R-Responsibility, D-Determination, and E-Empathy. Students receive a PAWS award when they display one of these character traits.

Initial design for the mobile:

Renders of the mobile in the 3d model of the rotunda:

Calculating the balance points:

Laser cutting and engraving the parts with the help of an Epilog Fusion M2 at Big Secret:

The finished mobile installed in the rotunda:

The wall plaque in the rotunda:

A “fly-around” animation of the 3d model:

– See more of my mobile commissions or read more of my blog about mobiles –

Mobiles – 3D Models – Render Animations (Videos)

A number of render animations I’ve put together of custom mobile designs:

To see the separate full length videos, please go to my YouTube channel.

3D Printed Mobile in Philadelphia Exhibit Titled MathThematic: A Fine Art Exhibition

Our 3D printed mobile Quaternary Tree Mobile (Level 5) is part of the current exhibition at Esther Klein Gallery in Philadelphia titled MathThematic: a fine art exhibition:

Image of 3D Printed Art

The show features artists of all media in an exhibition demonstrating mathematic evidence in art, whether the works are directly inspired by math (geometry, fractals, patterns, etc.) or if the mathematical principles emerge naturally and reveal themselves from our human predisposition towards order.

The exhibition is taking place at the Esther Klein Gallery at Philadelphia’s University City Science Center, 3600 Market Street, October 7–November 20, and is part of the annual city-wide DesignPhiladelphia festival (October 8–16). An opening reception is scheduled for today, October 14, 5–7:30pm. Gallery hours are Mondays–Saturdays, 9am–5pm.

$Image of Math Art Sculpture$

Among 2-dimensional paintings and drawings that display intricate fractals and kaleidoscopic geometries, a variety of 3-dimensional, video and interactive works will be on display. Showcasing mathematics as much as the medium, some of the works on view include a long algae-like crocheted piece of hyperbolic curves, interactive design where the viewer can customize fractal performance with the touch of a finger, and unique geometric paper sculptures using the system of scientific kirigami.

Participating artists include: Justin Bean, Regina Ceribelli, William Cromar, Jessica Curtaz, Chris Eben, Robert Fathauer, Karen Freedman, S. Leser, Marco Mahler and Henry Segerman, Gabriele Meyer, Maximilian Morresi, Brittany Phillips, Bruce Pollock, Mike Tanis, Andrew Cameron Zahn.

$Image of Math Art Sculpture$

This is the second exhibition curated by Gaby Heit at the Science Center’s Esther Klein Gallery investigating natural design. The first one was Cellular/Molecular for the 2013 Philadelphia Science Festival.

Press:

– Facebook Event Page –

Photos of Large Atrium Sculpture (Kinetic Art Mobile) Installed

Photos of a large atrium sculpture (kinetic mobile) I custom designed, made and installed (via The Art Company) at the newly built Joint and Spine Center at the Christ Hospital in Cincinnati, OH, last month (August 2015):

Photo of Large Fine Art Mobile

I competed against 22 sculptors for the commission including Zaha Hadid.

– See the design proposals that I submitted –

Photo of Large Hanging Mobile

The sculpture measures 33ft (10m) in height and 26ft (8m) in diameter.

Photo of Large Mobile Art

The largest shape is 5 2/3 ft long (1 3/4 m), the longest arm measures 17 3/4 ft (5 1/2 m) in length.

Photo of Atrium Sculpture

Made of aluminum, the mobiles weighs only about 100 pounds (45kg).

Photo of Kinetic Art Mobile

Two photos from the Grand Opening Celebration on August 28th 2015:

Photo of Large Hanging Kinetic Sculpture Custom Made

Photo of Large Hanging Mobile Art

Render animation of the 3D model of the mobile:

Photo of Large Custom Mobile

The hospital is located on a hilltop in historic Mt. Auburn above downtown Cincinnati. The view from the hospital’s rooftop garden:

Photo of Downtown View From Rooftop

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) designed the new Joint and Spine Center, the same architecture, interior design, engineering, and urban planning firm that also collaborated with Alexander Calder on numerous projects from the 1950s through the 1970s. A view from outside of the suspended sculpture in the atrium:

Photo of Atrium Sculpture Outside View

The 125 year old Christ Hospital is consistently recognized by U.S. News & World Report as one of the nation’s top hospitals. Here’s an outside view of the newly built Joint and Spine Center with the atrium in which the sculpture is installed at the main entrance:

Photo of Atrium Sculpture Outside View

These are photos that I took myself. Professional photos should follow within a month. Here’s one by Tom Rossiter for Health Care Design Magazine:

Photo by Tom Rossiter of Corporate Art Sculpture

Thanks to Mike Rainer of Mike’s Machine & Welding for assisting with the fabrication of the mobile.

– See more of my large mobile art –

5th Prize for 3D Printed Mobile at Swiss 3D Printing Competition

As part of the 20th Triennial Grenchen 2015 Art Limited – Multiple Art, the
Kunstgesellschaft Grenchen in collaboration with PrintaBit organized a 3d printing competition, in which the 3d printed mobile I submitted won 5th prize:

Image of 3D Printed Sculpture Mobile Art

From the jury:
“This work highlights the formal possibilities of 3D printing, as the way the joints are combined within
one form is possible only in that new media technique; and despite the hard-edge material, the
movement and lightness of color, with the play of shadow on the wall, creates a sense of dynamic
lightness.”

The above is a render.

Announcements are at 3Druck and PPS.

1st Prize went to Markéta Schiffnederová for her 3d printed sculpture Crumpled Rabbit:

Photo of 3D Printing Sculpture by Marketa Schiffnederova

From the jury:
“As a 3-dimensional form, this work is visually interesting from all angles; its subject – an organic
creature – visually has the throw-away quality of crumpled paper, yet the synthetic colour and actual
texture are contradictions to the known sight and touch of both rabbit and paper; and because it
successfully embraces the nature of the medium of 3D printing.”

2nd Prize went to Marc Reist, 3rd to Jean-François Réveillard, and 4th to Oliver Ende.

See more 3d printed art and sculptures, see more of our 3d printed mobiles, or read more of my blog about mobiles.

Photos of a Large Mobile (33ft/10m) Suspended by a Crane for Adjustments

Photos of a large mobile (33ft/10m) suspended by a crane for adjustments, which turned out to be very minimal because the balance points and various alignments were calculated beforehand with engineering software. Most of the connections were precise and did not need any adjustments:

Photo of Large Hanging Sculpture