Hard and Soft Boomerangs 1963

This field of orange and yellow and then these black and red marks made by Alexander Calder in 1963. It feels like Calder found the painting as he was making it, a kind of trial and error, intuition, and a bit of risk. I love this painting, I can feel him making it. I wonder if the yellow came first, those loosey-goosey washes! The drips suggest he was working fast, the paper on the floor? I think he’s having fun. Then these shapes start to appear, floating and sharp, like memories popping up or letters from a strange alphabet. That black star is interesting. You know, making a painting is like thinking in public. Other artists must have made similar paintings. It’s all one conversation, this art thing. It reminds me that painting is an embodied expression. It embraces ambiguity and uncertainty, and maybe that allows for multiple readings.