![This free-standing sculpture is made up of a sweeping, backward-facing C shape supporting a series of ten curving, interlocking, thin wires that cascade down and to our left in this photograph, each one ending in a flat, leaf-like paddle on either end. The C-shaped arm forks into three feet, on which the sculpture sits so the other branches float freely. The S-shaped arms are linked by tiny rings at the center of each arm, and they descend in size as they arc down and to our left. Each S-shaped arm has a black, roughly triangular paddle at the top; the third paddle from our right has a hole in it. The paddles at the bottom of each arm are each a different color, with ruby red to our right, then marigold orange, pine green, honey yellow, and the final four to our left are white. The size of the paddles also descend in size from our right to left. The branch connecting the S-shaped branches to the C-shaped base is curvier, and has one black paddle, the largest of all, at the bottom point.](https://media.nga.gov/iiif/ece5fc6b-825d-43ae-af50-e2444d24c361/full/!440,400/0/default.jpg)
Alexander Calder, Little Spider, c. 1940, sheet metal, wire, and paint, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Klaus G. Perls, 1996.120.18
On Little Spider by Alexander Calder
Teri Ellen Cross Davis
Whisper said Movement to the Spider.
Casting off light, propelling into color’s true power.
Heaving, thinking: Spider grows: awaiting
Itself: its pointed intuition: its gnawing hunger
fuels fruition.
Heaven is heavier
in cognition.
Belief: a tri-prong stand.
A web— a glistening intention.
A web— a glistening intention.
Belief: a tri-prong stand.
In cognition
heaven is heavier,
fueling fruition—
itself— its pointed intuition. A gnawing hunger
heaves into thinking: Spider grows: waiting
casting off light, propelling into color’s true power.
Whisper says Movement to the Spider.
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