Quotes from Alexander Calder

I paint with shapes.

You see nature and then you try to emulate it.

To most people who look at a mobile, it's no more than a series of flat objects that move. To a few, though, it may be poetry.

When everything goes right a mobile is a piece of poetry that dances with the joy of life and surprise!

To an engineer, good enough means perfect. With an artist, there's no such thing as perfect.

I paint with shapes.

To an engineer, good enough means perfect. With an artist, there's no such thing as perfect.

Why must art be static? You look at an abstraction, sculptured or painted, an entirely exciting arrangement of planes, spheres, nuclei, entirely without meaning. It would be perfect, but it is always still. The next step in sculpture is motion.

I have been making wire jewelry - and think I'll really do something with it, eventually.

I love red so much, I almost want to paint everything red.

My fan mail is enormous. Everyone is under six.

About my method of work: first it's the state of mind—Elation (joy).

When an artist explains what he is doing, he usually has to do one of two things: either scrap what he has explained, or make his work fit in with the explanation.

The underlying sense of form in my work has been the system of the Universe, or part thereof. For that is a rather large model to work from.

Just as one can compose colors, or forms, so one can compose motions.

Above all, art should be fun.

My whole theory about art is the disparity that exists between form, masses and movement.

My fingers always seem busier than my mind.