CONSTELLATION 1942

Alexander Calder made this Constellation with wood and wire. It's like he’s making a drawing in space. He doesn't fill it in, like a painting, but just gives you the bare bones: line and shape. The shapes and colors are muted—earth tones with that splash of dark green up top. I think of it as an open work, a kind of poem where the words are spare and the meaning is never totally fixed. See how the wire curves, so delicate? It reminds me of a Giacometti sculpture, where the figures are whittled down to almost nothing. Calder lets the materials speak, the wood grainy and worn. It makes you want to reach out and touch it. It isn’t trying to be perfect. That kind of rawness is something I really connect with. I try to get that in my own work, a sense of the hand and the process, rather than some kind of slick, finished product.