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Hung up on Mobiles

Published: Connecticut Post Sunday July 18, 2004

When Robert “Rab” Thornton was a 20-year-old college dropout, he decided to travel to Europe, living in Paris for 10 months during 1970-71.

That experience “changed my life forever,” says Thornton, 54, an artist who also serves as dean of outreach services at Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport.

Living in Paris not only inspired the Boulder, Colo., native to return to college fort undergraduate and advanced studies – it ignited a life-long love affair with the mobiles of Alexander Calder (1898-1976).

For the past five years, Thornton has worked on creating scores of his own mobiles – three-dimensional abstract sculptures featuring several counter-balanced components – that are generally suspended and set in motion by air currents.

A sampling of the Southbury artists’ works, ranging in price from about $100 to $1,500, will go on exhibition Tuesday at City Lights Gallery in downtown Bridgeport.

The show, which will feature about 20 to 25 hanging and standing mobiles, will be on display through July 30. An artist’s reception, which is free and open to the general public, will take place Wednesday from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.

Bernadette Deamico, gallery director, describes Thornton’s mobiles as “fun, whimsical pieces that are deceptively simple on first view. They’re really accessible to everyone … with their geometric shapes and natural elements like stones.

“ The message of this exhibit is that art comes in many forms. In Rab’s case, his art is anything but static,” she said.

Thornton points out that he grew up moving around the country (living in such states as Kansas and Tennessee) and in Edinburgh, Scotland, as his father moved from post to post as an English professor.

So upon moving to Paris, “I received an extraordinary cultural, political, culinary, as well as artistic shock living one block away from the intersection of the boulevards

St. Michel and St. Germain in the Latin Quarter.

“It was in Paris that I first studied color in art” – as championed by such artists as Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Matisse, Poussin, and Dali – “and found a love for Calder’s work.

“Calder’s colors, movement, complexity and pure fun immediately fascinated me.”

After returning from Paris, Thornton would go to receive a bachelor’s degree in art history from Boston University a master’s degree in Japanese film from New York University and a doctorate from Cincinnati’s Union Institute in leadership studies, with an emphasis on debt issuance to raise unrestricted endowment revenues for colleges an universities.

He is a co-author of the book “Opening College Doors” (HarperCollins 1992).

Thornton Fascinated by creating mobiles

Thornton said that he spent many years after Paris hoping to one day purchase his own Calder. About five years ago, he spotted a cheesy “knockoff” of a Calder in a Washington, D.C., museum gift shop.

“It was $500 – and it was awful,” said Thornton, laughing.

That’s when he decided to create his own mobiles. His work is now in private collections in New York, Florida, Boston, Connecticut, South Carolina and Japan.

The artist said he frequently works on commission.

“I like seeing the place in which my work will be placed, knowing the person/people who will live with it and creating work to reflect specific aspects of their life/lives.

“For example, one of my works was made for a survivor of the genocide I Rwanda. Its shape, movement, colors, number of ‘leaves’ and ‘holes’ all have direct meanings” for the recipient, he explained.

Another mobile was done to represent “an extended family and included a leaf [design] for each member, living and deceased, as well as colors depicting branches of the family.”

Creating mobiles, Thornton said, has been a fascinating learning experience. Although he doesn’t have “the genius of a Calder,” Thornton said that creating mobiles has allowed him to “bring out the artist in me that I didn’t know I had.”

“I’ve really had to look at form and color in a way that I never saw before. It’s taught me about patience, movement, proportion, design … and that everything has a balance.”

“It’s all fun … and it all moves.”

And although Thornton never purchased that Calder, he is surrounded by several in his HCC office. The college, which has one of the most extensive art collections of any two-year college in the nation, owns several Calder originals.

Currently on view in Dean Thornton’s office are five of his own mobiles, six Calder mobiles and two original Calder drawings.

“Not bad,” he added, laughing.