The Calder Game

by Blue Balliett

  Mrs. Knowsley introduced her young cousin Georgia Rip to the group, and was very glad she had.

  Calder gasped when he saw her. “Bird Girl!” he blurted.

  She frowned and said formally, “My name is Georgia, like the American painter Georgia O’Keeffe.”

  Over the course of a meal, she began to relax. By dessert — treacle pudding — she was talking. She told the group that she’d been drawn to the Minotaur from the moment she saw it. She loved painting and sketching. Her mother had been an artist, although not a famous one, and had insisted on her daughter’s name. Her dad, who felt art was for dreamers, didn’t want Georgia to become an artist. When she became fascinated with the Calder sculpture, he tried to prevent her from seeing it anymore. She began sneaking around.

  “The stuff of legends,” Mrs. Sharpe said quietly.

  Georgia nodded, surprising Mrs. Sharpe. She went on, “And then I was in the Lyon Tea Shop one day, and you came in, Calder, and I couldn’t believe someone else might have an artist’s name also. I wanted to talk to you, but then I had to pretend I wasn’t interested, because I thought my dad was watching me. He’d already decided he didn’t like you, probably because you’re American. My poor dad,” Georgia said, frowning again. “He didn’t mean anything dreadful to happen — he just got carried away. I know he wanted the best for me.”

  Petra, Tommy, and Calder all felt sorry for Georgia, and tried to make her comfortable. She was several years older than they were, but didn’t look it. Straw-thin, she had a nervous habit of rubbing the toe of one shoe against the heel of the other while she spoke.

  The four kids settled at one end of Miss Knowsley’s dining room table, and Calder, Tommy, and Petra explained the Calder Game. Georgia had no idea that the artist Calder had made sculptures that move, and she whispered, “Brilliant! Just brilliant!” The three friends showed her some of their recent mobiles, and soon Georgia was making her own. The first mobile she showed them was a series of five views of the Minotaur, sketched as if the giant sculpture were floating in space. She worked with confident, clean strokes, as if she could spin the structure in her mind.

  “Wow,” Calder said. “You’re good at this.”

  Walter Pillay, watching her, asked, “Did you take the picture of Calder and Art Wish in the square, the one I asked you about a few days ago? It’s okay if the answer is yes.”

  Georgia shook her head. “That was my mother’s camera. I use it to see. I’ve never had any film in it; my dad wouldn’t allow it.”

  Tommy asked her where she’d learned to draw.

  “I’ve had lots of time on my own, and I guess it’s in my blood. My mother wasn’t well for most of my childhood, and couldn’t really teach me.”

  Tommy nodded, thinking about his own abilities as a finder. His dad, who had been gone since he was a baby, had been trained as an archaeologist. Spotting treasures was just something Tommy knew how to do — no one had taught him.

  Petra then asked Georgia if she’d like to collaborate on a word-picture mobile, and soon their heads were together as they stirred sketches with words, crossed things out in excitement, rewrote, re-drew, laughed with delight, and added scribbled notes and arrows.

  Tommy and Calder had a glimpse of verbs (glimmer, glisten, gallop) interspersed with peeking faces. In between, lines of irregular bubbles filled with adjectives and creatures (slippery, shining, snake, snail) drifted across the page. It all seemed quite strange to the boys, who then had the same thought.

  “Alexander Calder’s studio,” Tommy said.

  “Right.” Calder nodded. “The best inventions are a mess while being invented.”

  “Thanks,” Petra said, but didn’t look insulted.

  Georgia Rip only smiled.

  Mrs. Sharpe remarked to Miss Knowsley, “Unusual girl, your cousin. Reminds me of myself at that age.”

  “Really!” Miss Knowsley chirped.

  Mrs. Sharpe then invited Georgia to visit Chicago that winter, provided that Miss Knowsley agreed. The elderly American said she had a big house, lots of art books, and plenty of time. Calder, Petra, and Tommy urged Georgia to come, telling her there was much to see and explore.

  Georgia beamed, thanked Mrs. Sharpe, and said she’d think about it. Walter Pillay, remembering the jumpy creature of several days before, didn’t think she even looked like the same girl.

  The people of Woodstock were developing a tender and newly proud relationship with their Minotaur, and Miss Knowsley even described the sculpture as a “wonder” to her nephew. There was a general feeling that the Minotaur had saved the boy by leaping into the Queen Pool and creating a wave that exposed the puzzle piece. After all, Woodstock residents had always lived with large creatures, mazes, and legend, and believed that nothing of value happened without connection to the past. As soon as the Minotaur came alive, joining the realm of symbol and story, it was accepted into the community and all bad feelings forgotten.

  Miss Knowsley ordered new key rings for her house, with the inscription: Visit Woodstock, Home of Kings and Minotaurs.

  “Never mind that there’s only one,” she remarked lightly to anyone who would listen. “Maybe my Artie will find us another!”

  From his hospital bed, where he lay quietly for several weeks, Arthur Wish gave instructions not to prosecute the men who moved the sculpture on that fateful night. He wanted to pay them for their trouble and worries, and planned to ignore any other plans they might have made. Nashy Rip and his accomplice, however, did go to prison for trying to steal the priceless work of art for themselves, and for trying to talk the police into giving them a reward.

  Later that year, Art Wish bought an old stone cottage in the center of town, and became a familiar face in the community. He gladly helped his aunt with the upkeep on their old family house, and Miss Knowsley was now able to have guests only when she wanted, and to knit and rock and chat for hours on end. Georgia now lived with Miss Knowsley, and was soon seen wearing a lovely red sweater. Mrs. Sharpe had arranged for her to have art lessons, and left her the Alexander Calder art book she had bought while Calder was in the hospital.

  Georgia cut up some of her old clothes and sewed a number of black mice for Pummy. She tied some of Miss Knowsley’s red wool around each mouse’s neck, and ran Pummy around the house to give him extra exercise. Pummy became hungrier than ever.

  The other four sculptures that were a part of Mr. Wish’s original mobile were installed around the world, and Arthur Wish spent several months traveling and watching and thinking. He was now very careful about how and where Alexander Calder’s work was introduced to any community.

  Sadly, the graffiti message in Trafalgar Square was scrubbed away, and its maker remained a mystery.

  And Banksy, wherever he was, stayed quiet about the Calder Game.

  When Calder, Petra, and Tommy walked into their seventh-grade classroom in Chicago, a barely recognizable version of the Button rushed over and gave them a hug.

  “Oh, it’s so wonderful to see you three!” she beamed, clearly meaning what she said.

  Their mouths open, the three kids stared. The classroom looked completely different. All of the desks had been pushed into clusters; there were no rows. And the walls were covered with mobiles — every inch but the windows had mobiles of all sizes and colors, all on paper. It was a miraculous collage of ideas, a joyful mishmash of talkative colors and shapes.

  Ms. Button threw out her arms. “Welcome home,” she said. She was wearing blue jeans, to their amazement, and her hair looked like Ms. Hussey had gotten to it.

  “What happened?” Petra managed to ask.

  Ms. Button thought for a moment, her head on one side. “Alexander Calder happened,” she said slowly. “And Arthur Wish. And the three of you.”

  “Amazing,” was all Calder could say, and he ran his fingers through his new set of wooden pentominoes.

  There was no doubt about it: The wind had changed, blowing them all into a new alignment. The people involve
d all saw things differently; the city of Chicago saw things differently; much of Woodstock saw things differently; and things were still moving.

  How had it all happened? Where had it started? It was hard to say.

  The mobiles had begun with Alexander Calder, of course, but this was larger than any one man or his art. The Calder Game had taken on a life of its own.

  And was this really a game?

  Maybe, but no one who played it was ever quite the same.

  A number of mobiles were left behind when the five Americans went home that fall. In the Woodstock Hospital reception area, these were seen recently, neatly pinned to a bulletin board:

  Another mobile was found on a crinkled piece of paper next to the Blenheim Park wall. It was kept by a shy and eccentric Woodstock resident, someone who rarely left home. This person tucked the mobile in a drawer, since it looked as if it should remain hidden:

  After all, what if Rosamund had sent it to Henry, or Henry to Rosamund?

  As everyone knew, Woodstock had its old secrets, and those secrets, if stumbled upon, were not to be told.

  The Minotaur is an invented combination of several large sculptures that Alexander Calder made in the 1950s. If you look at some of Calder’s many freestanding sculptures, or stabiles, as he called the ones without movement, you will be able to imagine it.

  The mobiles in this book fall into two categories: ones made by Calder, and ones inspired by him. There are several that occur in landscape (think primary colors), others created of people and by people, ones drawn and painted and printed, and a handful that consist of ideas. Perhaps you’ll recognize still another kind of mobile, one no one else has yet identified.

  The Jean-Paul Sartre quote on page 10 was taken from Calder’s Universe, by Jean Lipman, page 261. She references the famous preface Jean-Paul Sartre wrote in French for the Galerie Louis Carre exhibition in Paris in 1946. There have been several translations into English.

  Pentominoes are real. They are a math tool, and look like this:

  Thousands of different rectangles can be made with this set of twelve pieces.

  Woodstock is very real, and so is Blenheim Palace and its park. All of the history and geography is accurate except for one street name, one garden name, and the placement of several invented businesses. Hyde Park, Calder and Tommy and Petra’s neighborhood in Chicago, is also real.

  Banksy is real and lives in England. I want to thank him for inspiring so many people, including me.

  In his illustrations, Brett Helquist has hidden, in Calder code, eleven letters. As in a mobile, the letters float and drift. Once you have collected them all, you can arrange them in an order that will spell out a message. The letters appear in a pattern of fives.

  Writing a book is a balancing act, and love and thanks go to my family and friends. My husband Bill made several trips to Woodstock with me, remained calm in the midst of hedge mazes and British traffic circles, and took hundreds of Woodstock and Blenheim photographs. Our daughter Althea lived with the black cat that became Pummy in The Calder Game, and managed to capture and share him by e-mail. The real Pummy was always a help, in part by being so round and fierce; he reminded me that all things must keep moving.

  For their vision and expertise, many thanks go to the team at Scholastic, in particular to my marvelous editor David Levithan, to Charisse Meloto and Marijka Kostiw, to Linda Biagi, and to Ellie Berger and Lisa Holton. For her wisdom and guidance, many hugs go to my agent Doe Coover, and of course to Amanda Lewis.

  The Chicago Public Library has played a part in the making of this book. For their generous support, warm thanks go to Rhona Frazin and Mary Dempsey, and to Bob Sloane in the Art Information Center. Alexander Rower offered advice, information, and the unexpected joys of visiting the Calder Foundation. Ruth Horwich kindly shared both stories and art. Karen Wiseman and John Forster, at the Education Office at Blenheim Palace, have answered my questions with great patience and even sent me a not-for-everyone map. Many thanks to Jim Hecimovich for on-site explorations.

  Alexander Calder’s work has delighted me for as long as I can remember. This book is my way of thanking him.

  Blue Balliett’s books reflect her interest in seemingly unexplainable events and her passion to ask questions.

  Growing up in New York City, she loved the freedom of city life and exploring its wonders — the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Frick Collection, and Central Park. Blue took public transportation to school and around the city, and discovered early that every crowded bus or train is packed with mystery and drama — she learned that stories are every where, and there is always something to wonder about.

  After graduating from Brown University with a degree in art history, Blue moved to Nantucket Island in order to write. There she worked as a grill cook, a waitress, a researcher of old houses, and an art gallery director while she wrote two books of ghost stories, stories collected by interviewing people who lived on the island.

  When her children started school, the family moved to Chicago, to the neighborhood known as Hyde Park (sound familiar?), and she began teaching third grade at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. One year she and her class decided to figure out what art was about. They were looking for ways to feel comfortable thinking about art, and the real questions art historians live with. They came up with countless questions, visited many museums in the city, and had scavenger hunts that resulted in setting off a number of alarms — by mistake, of course.

  These experiences were part of the inspiration behind Chasing Vermeer, The Wright 3, and The Calder Game. Blue also wrote the books to explore the ways in which kids perceive connections between supposedly unrelated events and situations, connections that many adults often miss. Is a coincidence really just a coincidence? Before she wrote The Calder Game, Blue was on a book tour in England when she and her husband stopped in a small town called Woodstock. As she told the Chicago Tribune in an interview, she looked at the empty town square and thought, “What would happen if they had a fantastic sculpture in their square? What would happen to the town?”

  To answer this question, Blue found herself thinking of two artists she admired — the famous sculptor Alexander Calder and the mysterious street artist Banksy. She immersed herself in their work and also returned to Woodstock, this time with a mystery on her mind.

  When she started writing Chasing Vermeer, Blue chose to work at a desk in her family’s laundry room. Now, even though her books have been bestsellers and have been translated into more than twenty-five languages, she still writes in the laundry room, letting her characters wander the neighborhood and travel the world, looking for clues and making those unexpected connections.

  Brett Helquist was born in a very small town in Arizona where there was nothing to see for miles around, except a lot of red dirt. With not much else for him and his six sisters to do, he learned to use his imagination. That and his discovery of the newspaper comic strips — his favorite was Alley Oop — was what started him off drawing. As a kid, he spent many hours dreaming of creating his own comic strips.

  When Brett was about eleven years old, his family moved to Utah, where there was a lot to do. He became interested in fishing, hiking, and camping, and didn’t think very much about being an artist anymore. He had decided he wanted to be a scientist in order to better understand the world around him.

  Then while in college at Brigham Young University, Brett started to think about art again. He began as an engineering major, but soon realized it was not the right choice. He decided to take some time off and headed for Taiwan. There he stumbled into work illustrating textbooks and a year later went back to school to study illustration. From that moment on, he knew what he wanted to do.

  Soon after graduation he moved to New York City, where he still lives with his wife and daughter. Before becoming a full-time illustrator, Brett worked as a graphic designer. His illustrations have appeared in magazines, newspapers, picture books, and novels. A
s an artist, Brett tries to be observant, to look carefully, and to discover the beautiful and amazing things all around him.

  Q: Your appreciation of Alexander Calder’s work comes through strongly in The Calder Game. What do you think is the appeal of his sculptures — to both kids and adults?

  A: There is something deeply satisfying about his sculpture that is hard to explain — I’ve been looking at it for over forty years, and I still don’t really understand where the “just right” feeling comes from. His work is a crazy bundle of opposites. It’s playful and unpretentious — accessible to all ages — yet unpredictable, asymmetrical, graceful, balanced. There is something oddly alive about these metal constructions, something that doesn’t seem to depend on any formula or set of ingredients. Hmm, perhaps it’s magic.

  Q: What do you want readers to come away with when they read The Calder Game?

  A: Lots of questions that weren’t in their minds before they picked up the book, such as: Can life itself be seen as a mobile? How does context change how you see, whether you’re looking at art or yourself or another person? What does it mean to be “foreign”? How can art be freed? Does it need to be freed?

  Q: What type of research did you do for The Calder Game?

  A: I visited and stayed in Woodstock, England, three times, read lots on the history of the town and on Blenheim, ate every kind of Cadbury chocolate, read many books about Alexander Calder and saw as much of his work as possible, read as much about Banksy and his art as I could find, and did a ton of research on hedge mazes, including getting lost in a number of massive, prickly ones in England. Research is a great excuse for having adventures.