Mobiles

Fourteen years ago I visited the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and came across Calder’s mobiles for the first time, including the 76-foot-long mobile in the East Building (a must-see for anyone visiting the city, in my opinion). Shortly after that I made my first mobile for my baby nephew. It looked quite strange, made of wire, cork and aluminum foil (I was thinking the shimmering foil would capture a baby’s attention), definitely not your conventional baby mobile. I very much enjoyed making it, and I kept experimenting with minimalistic wire mobiles.Eventually, someone asked me to make a larger custom mobile for a restaurant. Then I got another request to make custom mobiles for New York Fashion Week, and gradually what had started as a hobby turned into a full-time profession. Since then I’ve made a wide variety of retail mobiles, large custom mobiles, 3D printed mobiles (apparently the first ones in the world) and standing kinetic sculptures.Shown: One of a series of 3D printed mobiles that I designed with Henry Segerman, assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics at Oklahoma State University. With the balance points calculated to 1/25,000th of an inch, it comes out of the printer completely assembled.