Last month was undoubtedly, the worst month of my Phd so far.

Germany is good, don’t get me wrong, but experimental science can be the most heartbreaking of quests. The worst part is when the input doesn’t equal the output. When things don’t work, and you don’t know why. At these times, we scientists unanimously turn to our other lives.

We swear to become bakers. Crochet tiny animals from twine. Start knitting, drawing, felting, sewing.

And grand desserts parade from our kitchen. And the freezer is full of falafel. And the house never looked so clean.

We want to do something, that does something. That produces a tangible product.

Like a mobile!

Things went down the drain on a Thursday, and I spent Friday trying to understand why (I still don’t). Monday and Tuesday continued poorly, so I took a mental health day on Wednesday (not being on-the-ball in a lab can be damaging, costly, and dangerous).

I watched Frozen, the movie, so that I could finally find out what my 30-year-old papa-to-three coworker keeps singing about, and did some kind of occupational therapy.

My aunt and uncle are rather amazingly crafty, and as kids, my sister and I had bedrooms decked out in the finest of mobiles. Pandas for her. Penguins for me. Our favourites.

But it wasn’t until I visited a travelling MOMA exhibition in Perth a few years back, the I fell in love with Calder.

The guy actually invented the mobile. Isn’t that insane? That the concept of mobile art just wasn’t a thing until Alexander Calder came along and filled the world with dancing leaves, falling snow and the beautiful ghostly shadows that they cast?

I made this little fellow from black card and very thin wire, and I  think he nicely matches the Kadinsky print I picked up at a flea market.

(Personally, I’m not a huge Kadinsky person, Andy is more into that style, but I like the colours of this aptly named Yellow-Red-Blue. Mostly, however, I like the fact that it clearly has an upside down cat in it, which happens to look suspiciously like Kadinsky’s own cat Vaske).

Anyway, here she is. Our brand new mobile!

      

I like the way she turns, baby.