KPLU Local News
(2010-02-08)
Listen Now:
null
Jon Shirley, an avid Alexander Calder collector, stands in front of Calder's iconic "Eagle" at Seattle's Olympic Sculpture Park. Shirley and his wife Mary donated the Calder to the Seattle Art Museum.
Florangela Davila (KPLU)
At the Seattle Art Museum Jon Shirley points to all the Alexander Calder mobiles that typically dance inside his own Medina home.
"That hangs in our dining room," he says. "That hangs in the living room. That hangs in our bedroom. I find it very joyful to get up in the morning and see, see that there."
For two decades, Shirley and his wife Mary have been collecting Calders and works by other contemporary artists, building one of the most distinguished collections in the world.
The Shirleys are huge in the local arts scene as well, instrumental in creating the Olympic Sculpture Park and donating heavily to the Seattle and Bellevue art museums.
These days the Shirleys are also responsible for the aerial treat on display in the 4th floor galleries at SAM. The exhibit - Alexander Calder, A Balancing Act - showcases the whimsical yet precise talent of the late American artist best known for his colorful and groundbreaking mobiles.
Nearly all of the pieces in this show belong to the Shirleys, who offered their collection as a way to help the museum.
Jon Shirley was just a teenager in the 1950s when he first fell hard for the artist. He took a school field trip to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
"They had a magnificent hanging Calder there and I went, 'Wow!' Shirley recalls. "And I said, 'My gosh! Look at this thing!'"
Shirley's asked: Was your reaction similar to looking at a beautiful woman?
"Yeah, exactly," he replies.
Jon and Mary Shirley have been married 45 years and a love of art has always been something they've held in common. Mary has an art background. Jon gained an appreciation from his mom.
"My mother loved the arts."
But he didn't inherit her artistic talent.
"I can't draw a straight line. I'm not creative in the least. Maybe that's why I enjoy being around creative people and seeing the things that they can do."
That Shirley would gravitate towards Calder makes sense. He's got an engineering background. So did Calder, who embraced science with color and design.
He was also a master craftsman, which Shirley admires.
"There's a great story about Calder that he, he had a show at a small museum and he showed up a week and a half before the show and they said, The art hasn't arrived yet.' And he had wire strung over his arm. He had a tool belt on. He had an assistant bring in cans of paint. He had some metal sheers and he had a bunch of aluminum. He created the entire show in a week. The whole thing. It was a small show but still that's the kind of thing that he did."
Shirley built his career in personal computing - and his fortune at Microsoft during the 80s. He served seven years as Microsoft's president and chief operating officer before retiring in 1990.
But even when Shirley wasn't rich his walls were always decorated with art.
"We always had some things around. When all you can afford to go to a museum and buy a print that's what we did."
The Shirleys would hang prints at home: "Starry Night" by Vincent Van Gogh. And Calder.
Original Calders now float inside their home. Or dangle as wearable art on Mary. Calder designed jewelry, also on display as part of the show.
But no matter the scale you can always pick out a Calder because they're so much fun.
"I just love the whimsy in his work. There's always some element of whatever he's done that shows that he was a whimsical man. That he had a great joy of life."
Some may see a Calder as too accessible and friendly - and dismiss it as being too simplistic. But others lose themselves in the colors and shapes.
At the Olympic Sculpture Park Shirley once saw a group of children escape into their own world underneath "The Eagle."
"There were 3 or 4 kids lying on the grass looking up at the Calder. They were lying underneath it looking up and it was obvious that they were having so much fun just lying there doing this. To me it was just so gratifying that that happens."
You can't lie underneath the Calders at the museum.
But you can feel like a kid again sitting ringside at a circus.
The exhibit includes a movie showing Calder speaking French and performing the circus with his hand-sculpted toy animals.
The Calder show - with its bold, playful - continues at SAM through April.
Florangela Davila KPLU News.
Seattle Art Museum website
Artscape Series Homepage © Copyright 2012, KPLU
