Thursday, February 12, 2009

It's all about Balance


Sculpture students are learning how balance effects what they make.
We've all had Christmas trees in our lives that weren't balanced. Sometimes we tied them up, or tacked parts to the wall to create a better balance. But sculpture artists must make a piece of art that will balance on its own.
We started this unit by looking at the king of balance, Alexander Calder, who invented the mobile. He could take any tiny thing and make a balanced and most often, moving sculpture from it. Students learned about asymmetrical, symmetrical and radial balance, then practiced these in sculpture form. By puttting their first sculpture on a wire, they not only needed to balance it successfully, but needed to consider where the center of gravity was, how to increase the strength of the wire for heavier sculptures and how to create an interesting piece that would attract a viewer's attention.
Their second sculpture is an asymmetrical mobile, hanging from the ceiling or sitting as a table-top mobile. Calder made many humorous sculptures (a seal balancing balls, leaves blowing in the wind, a juggler) in his mobiles so that they had a theme as well as colorful balance. Our students must also have a theme to connect the ides of their sculpture. Some of our student's themes are space, growing flowers, monsters and arrows.

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