Making Mobiles

Balancing Motion: Making Mobiles with Michael Chaikin.

Join artist Michael Chaikin for two days of making, experimentation and playful engineering as you create your own large-scale hanging and floor-standing mobiles.

Beginning with an illustrated talk and discussion, Michael will introduce the principles behind mobile making: how movement, proportion and balance work together, simple ways to calculate balance points, and examples of different approaches to kinetic sculpture. You’ll then head out to gather inspiration and materials before beginning construction using found objects alongside materials provided.

The second day is dedicated to making, refining and problem solving, with Michael offering individual guidance throughout as ideas develop and structures become more ambitious.

This course is suitable for beginners and experienced makers alike. Expect a hands-on, exploratory atmosphere and to leave with at least one – and hopefully two – finished mobiles to take home.

Michael Chaikin is a Cornish sculptor and kinetic artist whose work explores movement, balance and the poetry of objects in motion. Originally trained in Fine Art at Falmouth Art College after an earlier career in medicine, he has spent more than three decades creating mobiles and moving sculpture for galleries, public spaces and private commissions in the UK and internationally. His work has been exhibited in London, Paris, Hamburg and Dubai, with solo exhibitions at Kestle Barton and the Majlis Gallery, Dubai, and installations shown at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens and the Eden Project. Michael’s teaching combines practical making with an experimental approach that encourages participants to discover the possibilities of movement through making.