Calder's Candles - one of my first sculptures

     Went out to dinner last night and in Abigail and Tony's new sun room what did I see but one of my early sculptures"Calder's Candles". Alexander Calder has influenced and inspired me. Soon after I met Marianne, Chris and Jenny we saw Calder's Circus at the Whitney. A little later one of the twins, I think it was Chris, got sick and had to stay home. To pass the time, inspired by Calder's Circus, we made a trapeze act and eventually were able to get the male trapeze artist, hanging by his feet from his swing to grab the female's hands when, as they were both swinging, they met in the middle. Then her feet let go of her bar and the trick was done. It took all day to get it to work but when Marianne and Jenny got home we were able to give them a show. That was the first sculpture I made as an adult. 

    If I hadn't fallen in love with Marianne, Chris and Jenny I'm pretty sure I never would have become a sculptor.

    I made several of these in Travis Tuck's Studio at the Art Worker's Guild in Vineyard Haven back in the fall of 1976. While he was traveling in Europe I paid the rent and got to use a real artist's studio. He had the tools so that I could make the perfect circles out of bronze rod and fabricate brass cups for the candles that caught the wax dripping from the candles.

   I had made the original out of coat hangers and used the tops of tomato cans to hold the candles. We put it in our bedroom. It was very romantic, and after the candles burned out we slept. In the morning we woke up to find trails of dripped wax all over the floor and part of the top of a dresser.  What a mess.