While visiting the spectacular Alexander Calder: the Paris Years at the Whitney last weekend I came across a book on his ‘devised objects,’ namely the household devices that he improvised with the same whimsy of his wire-and-found-object sculptures. Just as he was capable of making kinetic toys and figural sculpture from bare wire and trinkets (below), so his entire house was populated with lamps, ashtrays, even cooking utensils improvised from the same materials. There are few images online of this work – the only ashtray I found below – but you can sneak a peek into Calder’s house thanks to LIFE’s online archive, and there you can spy some of the improvised devices the sculptor made for his own home. In the image above, you can see some cooking instruments and a large ashtray fashioned from found metal on the Calders’ mantlepiece. Up-cycling isn’t just good for the environment – it can be source of artistic inspiration.
