Copper, Brass, Steel

Here's a mobile we recently sent off to a private residence in California:

It's based on a mobile we made for the HGTV's Divine Design (See April 24, 2008), but includes a mix of copper, brass, and stainless-steel shapes. The bottoms of the shapes are bushed, and the tops are polished so the varying colors will reflect nicely on the ceilings. (And don't worry, the client's ceilings will be much prettier than our shop ceilings!) The entire mobile hangs 20" wide by 60" tall.

Columbus Art Museum: The Shapes

We're making good progress on the interactive stabiles for the Columbus Art Museum we mentioned last month. Ben, our in-house industrial designer and materials aficionado, found the best-ever material for the shapes: polyethylene, a colorful heavy duty plastic normally used on playground equipment that's fade resistant, crack resistant, and practically indestructible. Perfect for the beating we expect (or hope!?) these stabiles will take!

Here's a rendering of the shapes:

And here are (a portion of) the actual shapes:

Also in the Queue

Here's another project in our queue:

This piece will hang from the decorative recessed ceiling in the lobby of an orthopedic clinic in York, Pennsylvania. It will hang 16 feet wide by 14 feet tall.

And yes, it's shaping up to be a very busy fall.

Gateway Church

Here's the newest project in our queue: a 40-foot long piece that will hang in a newly completed church in Dallas. The structure will include 22 individual pieces, each about 4 feet long by 1.5 feet wide.

Here's the rendering:

As an interesting side note, this particular client came across us when he saw one of our early commissions, which hangs in a rec center in Saginaw, Texas. It's mind boggling to think how much we've learned since that particular project. Needless to say, we're excited to work on this!

Columbus Museum of Art: The Bases

We're working on a really fun project right now: An interactive set of stabiles with interchangeable arms and hanging parts that will be on display at the Columbus Museum of Art.

The stabile bases are about 3 feet tall, and each will include 15 varying-sized arms and 32 shapes.

Here are the stabile bases, waiting patiently to be powder coated.

Collaboration

We just finished up another collaborative project with local mobile artist/glass worker extraordinaire, Leah Pellegrini. (See November 11, 2008 for the first collaboration.) The project included a set of four 8-foot-wide by 4-foot-tall mobiles. Leah designed the mobiles and created the glass shapes. We did the wire bending, balancing, packing, and shipping overseas to the Hong Kong International School.

Museum (Gift Shop) Worthy

If you’re in the Chicago area anytime before October, be sure to check out the Museum of Contemporary Art's Calder exhibit. And while you’re there, be sure to check out the gift shop for the Ekko Mobiles exhibit! Ok, "exhibit" might be an overstatement... Still, we’re honored to be in such good company.

Texas Twosome

Another blast from the past. Rather blasts from the past, both projects in Texas (and images shot by the same photographer).

The first mobile was created and installed in November 2008 for the North Austin Women Hospital. At the time, we struggled to capture images of the piece because of how it hung within the staircase, not fully visible from any vantage point. Ah, but leave it to a professional to pull out the fisheye lens.

And this is a mobile we completed for the San Antonio Children’s Hospital (May 5, 2009). Love this photo! (But frankly, anything would have been better than the pathetic iPhone photos we snapped at the install.)

SemiSwing Junior

In case you haven’t noticed, we've been on a mission to collect images of past projects. Here’s a mobile we created two summers ago (see August 21, 2008) for a client in Houston.

She had such an interesting design challenge: fit a floor-to-ceiling mobile in a little living room nook between two doorways–without getting in the way. While we were happy with our creation, we never saw how the mobile fit into the space...until now!

Rapides Lobby

Our client for the Rapides Regional Medical Center project just sent along these fun photos of the completed lobby where we installed the massive mobile back in February. Call us biased, but we think the mobile looks great with the lobby’s bright color scheme and playful design elements.