Modern jewelry: Alexander Calder

Alexander Calder is best known for his mobiles, but he also designed as many as 1800 pieces of jewelry for his family and friends. When he was a child, he started making jewelry for his sister's dolls, using wire he found in the streets. By the late 1930s and 1940s, he was creating jewelry reminiscent of his sculptures in form and movement.

Calder made no effort to mass produce his jewelry designs. Instead, he made them as expressions of art and his love for the recipient. When these pieces are auctioned today, they bring incredibly high prices.

From lecabinetdecuriosite.com
All images from calder.org

Belt

Bracelet

Hair comb

Ring

Necklace

Belt

Necklace

Necklace

Ring

Google Doodles...gotta love 'em

It's a little past midnight as I write this post, and the March 27 Google Doodle honoring of the 126th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe has gone on to the Big Google Doodle Archive in the Sky. It was the subject of a number of blog entries yesterday, but I believe that it...along with other Google Doodles of interest to mid-century mavens...deserves one more look.

Mies van der Rohe Doodle
google.com

Usually Google Doodles involving mid-century design/culture take me by surprise. Even though I do many biographical posts, remembering birthdays is not my strong suit. To be honest, I do well to remember the birthdays of my immediate family. So, no, I'm not waiting with bated breath to see what Google is going to come up with in honor of the next designer's birthday. 

Instead, what alerts me is unusual activity on my blog. Yesterday when I woke up and did the obligatory check of email and the blog, I found that I had received almost 2,000 hits since going to bed a few hours earlier. The final tally for the day was over 6,000 hits. 

I'm a little slow on the uptake, so I was puzzled until I started reading posts from my favorite fellow bloggers. After seeing several nods to the Google Doodle, the reason for the spike in hits was clear. This has happened a couple of times before...first when the Alexander Calder Doodle appeared, causing an incredible 17,000+ spike of my blog hits, and again the day the Marimekko Doodles ran, with a much smaller but still noticeable spike.

Calder 113th Birthday Doodle
google.com

Marimekko First Day of Spring Doodle
google.com

Marimekko First Day of Fall Doodle
google.com

Don't get me wrong. I'm not all about the numbers. The Google Doodles have an intrinsic coolness that can't be denied.  Take, for instance, the interactive Doodles. You can watch a clip of I Love Lucy on the Doodle commemorating Lucille Ball's 100th birthday. Or you can record a tune on the Les Paul Doodle celebrating the guitar virtuoso's 96th birthday. Or you can even play PAC-MAN on the Doodle honoring the game's 30th anniversary.

But let's be honest. In the blogosphere, as well as in other social media, we love anything that drives traffic to our sites...and Google Doodles definitely do that. That makes them extra cool in my book.

"I think best in wire." --Alexander Calder

At first I thought my Blogger account had gone all wonky on me. I was having an unprecedented number of page views Thursday...four times what I usually have on a good day. I noticed that most of them were on a post I wrote months ago about Alexander Calder and mobiles, which has always logged the most views of all my posts. Still, I was suspicious that it was a glitch, even though I had comments from several readers I'd never seen before.

When I got up yesterday morning, I looked at my stats, and the page views for the day had shot up to more than 16,000 overnight. That cinched it. I was ready to contact Blogger and tell them my account was fried...till I looked at Google. It turned out that Google was celebrating the 113th anniversary of Calder's birth on July 22, 1898, by having a mobile in the well-known "Google Doodle" spot. When I clicked to read more about the artist, I found that my post was on Google's first page. That explained it. By 7:00 p.m., when the counter rolled over, my hits for the day had reached 17,955. Crazy! I'm still shaking my head in disbelief. I never knew the Google Doodle had that kind of impact on web searches. (The Calder Doodle is gone, and today is back to normal, incidentally.)

But thank you, Google, for driving so much new traffic my way yesterday... and thank you, Alexander Calder.

Google Doodle, July 22, 2011
searchenginewatch.com

Calder in his Paris studio, 14 Rue de la Colonie, fall 1931. Photograph by Marc Vaux
calder.org

Sumac II, 1952
calder.org

The Y, 1960
calder.org

o2u1.com

Mobiles: Alexander Calder, Leah Pellegrini and DIY

Alexander Calder (1898-1976), whose illustrious career spanned much of the twentieth century, is the most acclaimed and influential sculptor of our time. Born into a family of classically trained artists, Calder utilized his innovative genius to change the course of modern art. He began by developing a new method of sculpting: by bending and twisting wire, he essentially "drew" three-dimensional figures in space. He is renowned for the invention of the mobile, whose suspended abstract elements move and balance in changing harmony. Because of Calder's designs, the mobile became a common element in mid-century decorating.

I recently discovered a glass artist named Leah Pellegrini on etsy.com who does Calder-like mobiles in several sizes. She offers a mini-size for $25, a large size for $610 and several sizes in between, making her work affordable for everyone. I bought one of her small mobiles, which just arrived yesterday. It is a beautiful piece, and now I want one of her larger ones.

Several months ago I bought a book on curbly.com entitled Make It! Mid-Century Modern. It contains twelve DIY projects, including one called the Calderiffic Mobile. I have all the materials, but I haven't made the mobile yet. However, Leah's work has inspired me to get started. The materials required for the project cost practically nothing, and the instructions are very clear, so anyone who really wants a beautiful Calderesque mobile can have one.
From calder.org

Calder mobile
calder.org

Calder mobile
calder.org

Mobile at National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Pellegrini mobile, large
leahpellegrini.etsy.org

Pellegrini mobile, mini
leahpellegrini.etsy.com

Do-it-yourself book
curbly.com