Artist Jack Hastings is remembered for his extraordinary sculptures, paintings and drawings, much of it in public spaces. But now, his partner, Arlyn Ende, must find a new home for one of Hastings’ largest creations: a 40-foot by 25-foot mobile, “Homage to Calder,” which presently hangs in the TVA southeast headquarters in Chattanooga.
“This is a unique opportunity to have a major work of art by a local artist with a national reputation,” Ende said. The piece is available because TVA is renovating the building; as part of this process, TVA is returning major artworks to the artists it commissioned 30 years ago.
The mobile was constructed at Hastings’ and Ende’s studio in Bradyville, Tenn., where they lived until they moved to Sewanee in 1994. The piece is made of airframe aluminum and painted with permanent acrylic colors. He named this monumental artwork “Homage to Calder” in honor of the sculptor-engineer who in 1932 created hanging sculptures of discrete movable parts powered by the wind, which Marcel Duchamps christened mobiles.
Ende recalled the creative process: “If you had gone looking for Jack 30 years ago at his studio and farm in Bradyville, you’d have crossed a creek, climbed a hill and found him back behind his studio intensely absorbed in an aerodynamic exercise that was somewhere between physics and aesthetics. He would have been at the controls of his antique Oliver tractor, hoisting with slow, deliberate precision a 30-foot-long rod, higher and higher, as he calculated and calibrated its swing and balance with a bright orange spiral icon dangling from its end. He’d pause, break concentration, and invite you into his large workroom to show you a scale model of the work-in-progress and explain what was up.” Ende recalls the process of getting the enormous piece installed in the new building.
“One night just prior to the official opening of the new TVA building, Jack and I drove to Chattanooga to deliver and install the mobile,” she said. “Our truck was filled to capacity with the carefully identified parts Jack had tested so precisely, and with tools and backup parts ‘just in case.’
“His well-thought-out plan was in place to finally assemble the sculpture in its entirety for the first time. A crew had already attached the master cable to the solar glass ceiling high in the five-story atrium and were there waiting for the main event to begin.
“Jack laid out the rods, fittings, and colorfully painted aluminum icons systematically on the floor. The cable was lowered. From a balcony four stories up,” Ende said, “Jack called out instructions to the crew below to attach, and very slowly, very gently hoist the rods and icons from the floor in the proper order.”
As the piece was installed, she said, “I remember the magical, jaw-dropping suspense as we saw the air itself take shape around each moving arm and attenuated icon as it glided upward and outward to the ephemeral airspace.
“There was a breathtaking silence when the last fitting was tightened and the crew drew back. I sensed and shared the pride, gratitude and relief that filled Jack as his ‘Homage to Calder’ was released, finally on its own.”
Hastings, who died in 2013, has two mobiles installed at the Nashville International Airport, as well as public art across the U.S., including pieces in Tennessee, as well as in Germany.
For information about being considered to receive this large and precious piece of art, contact Hastings’ art trustee, Susan Tinney, at <susan@tinneycontemporary.com>
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