A learning lesson “Under The Big Top” 

Calder Alexander was an American artist best known for constructing kinetic sculptures called mobiles, which were balanced works of art that moved with the air currents.  

In the mid-1920’s, Alexander moved to Paris and created an item called, “Cirque Calder.” a miniature circus with wire sculptures that were animated during performances. It would lead to inventing the mobile in 1931. 

DeSoto Christian Academy instructor Julie Bales’ freshman class has been studying Alexander and took his work as inspiration for their own circus, inspired by Alexander.

“We’ve studied body proportions and we studied Calder Alexander,” Bales said.”We decided to make our figurines this year to be a part of a circus thing, so each student made a different character of a circus and then some additional students made the cages for the lions they made the lions, they made elephant food trailers. It was a 1940s circus.”

Once done, the students turned the room into a circus and invited younger students to come see the show.  

“They all came in, we gave them all a little ticket and they dropped it off at the ticket booth,” Bales said. “We made them some popcorn, they grabbed their little popcorn bag, they sat down, and we had one student welcome them and tell them a little background.”

Bales said the student went on to talk about the popularity of the circus and how the figures were made. There was also a story told called the Mystery of the Missing Keys and the audience got involved trying to guess who stole the key. Bates felt the youngsters enjoyed being back at the circus.  

“We played old time circus music when they came in and they were just so happy,” said Bales. “They were so into it.”

Bales feels her students learned a few things from building the circus.  

“They learned body proportion, which is very important for art and for drawing,” she explained. “They learned how to create out of recyclables, because most of everything that you see here, except for the wire, was made out of recyclables and they learned creativity.”

Bales also thinks the students also learned what she called the “joy of giving joy to young students.”

“We talked about that a lot, how art and stories can kind of take children that might be in a stressful situation or have a burden on their heart, and they can just sit and laugh and enjoy,” Bales said. “That was a gift that we gave to them, and the kids really enjoyed that.”