Red Curly Tail

I first saw Alexander Calder’s sculptures when I was 4, mainly the giant mobile in the atrium of the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. A giant mobile aptly named, Untitled. Just the scale that Calder’s sculptures can reach is impressive to a 4-year-old, and now that I’m older and stand over 10 feet tall, the height of La Grande Voile at MIT or The Eagle in Seattle is still impressive.

The scale of those are impressive, and the minimalism is refreshing and maybe intoxicating, but what about a few more elements and colors? Instead of black and red, what about… yellow, and white? If that sounds appealing, then let me introduce you to Red Curly Tail.

Red Curly Tail is the centerpiece of the Calder exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum right now, and after walking past, I just kept turning back for more looks. It isn’t just a monolith, and it isn’t just a mobile. Even the mobile on the top isn’t hanging like the others, but seems precariously balanced on the top, and ready to spin in the slightest breeze. There’s yellow here, and monochrome there. There’s three here, and two there. There are straight edges and sharp corners on the stegosaurus plates, then very organic curves in the tail.

Does the gift shop sell a scale model? I’d buy it in a heartbeat, one to make and one to keep, and at least two others for gifts. Well, I didn’t check the gift shop, but I’ve looked for Calder models before and never found any. (I do remember a tiny version of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen’s Typewriter Eraser, Scale X, in the gift shop the last time I was there, a kind of commercial recursion that would make Douglas Hofstadter smirk)

So, why not 3D print one for myself? For non-commercial, fair use, parody reasons. The plates are easy enough to trace, and setting the photo as a foot high already gives a great tabletop scale. The red body though, curves in perspective, will be tricky to match.

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