ALEXANDER CALDER

Just as one can compose colors, or forms, so one can compose motions.

To an engineer, good enough means perfect. With an artist, there's no such thing as perfect.

I have been making wire jewelry - and think I'll really do something with it, eventually.

Why must art be static? You look at an abstraction, sculptured or painted, an entirely exciting arrangement of planes, spheres, nuclei, entirely without meaning. It would be perfect, but it is always still. The next step in sculpture is motion.

My fan mail is enormous. Everyone is under six.

The underlying sense of form in my work has been the system of the universe, or part thereof. For that is a rather large model to work from.

I paint with shapes.

It was hard to see the ‘art’ because everything partook of the art. Even the victrola had been painted so as to be in harmony. I must have missed a lot, because it was all one big decor, and the things in the foreground were lost against the things behind. But behind all was the wall running from one window to the other and at a certain spot Mondrian had tacked on it rectangles of the primary colors, and black, gray + white. In fact there were several whites, some shiny some matte.

When everything goes right a mobile is a piece of poetry that dances with the joy of life and surprise!

To most people who look at a mobile, it's no more than a series of flat objects that move. To a few, though, it may be poetry.

The first inspiration I ever had was the cosmos, the planetary system.

If you can imagine a thing, conjure it up in space then you can make it... The universe is real but you can't see it. You have to imagine it. Then you can be realistic about reproducing it.

You see nature and then you try to emulate it.

The next step in sculpture is motion.

The sense of motion in painting and sculpture has long been considered as one of the primary elements of the composition.

My fingers always seem busier than my mind.

The basis of everything I do is the universe.

The universe is real, but you can't see it. You have to imagine it.

About my method of work: first it’s the state of mind—Elation (joy).

My whole theory about art is the disparity that exists between form, masses and movement.

The trouble with a lot of artists today is that they have too much technique and equipment. They don't know what to do with it all. If you cut down on it, you can work more strongly within narrower limits.

Above all, art should be fun.

The simplest forms in the universe are the sphere and the circle. I represent them by disks and then I vary them... spheres of different sizes, densities, colours and volumes, floating in space, traversing clouds, sprays of water, currents of air, viscosities and odours - of the greatest variety and disparity.

A mobile is an abstract sculpture made chiefly out of sheet metal, steel rods, wire and wood. Some or all of these elements move, propelled by electric motors, wind, water or by hand.

I love red so much, I almost want to paint everything red.