Crinkly Worm 1971

Alexander Calder made this playful sculpture, Crinkly Worm, out of painted sheet metal. It’s a riot of primary colors: bright red, cool blue, and some bold black stripes, twisting and turning like a worm making its way through the dirt. I can imagine Calder in his studio, bending and shaping the metal with his hands, figuring out how to make it stand and balance. Maybe he started with a flat piece of metal, and then, bit by bit, gave it life. There is something so direct, so hands-on about it. The way the colors pop makes me think of Joan Miró's biomorphic shapes, or even Matisse’s cut-outs. But with Calder, there's also this added dimension of sculpture, of something that exists in space, that you can walk around and see from different angles. I think artists are always talking to each other, across time and space, in this silent, visual language, picking up on each other's ideas, pushing them further, and making something new. And that’s how art keeps evolving. It's about that exchange, that constant conversation.