I love to watch babies, enchanted and giggling, as they gaze at mobiles moving gently above their cribs with every breeze and breath. So I was happy to discover an artist who makes stunning, airy mobiles for grown-up rooms, each a tribute to nature’s most graceful branches, leaves and flowers.
Jan R. Carson, the owner and creator of Moon-Lily Silk Mobiles, works with silk, fine-gauge steel wire and hand tools to make spare leaf mobiles starting at just $180 (with a tree planted through American Forests’ Global Releaf program for every sale).
Art collectors might aspire to the limited edition Flowering Dogwood, with branches cast from life in resin, and flowers and leaves made from hand-dyed silk; Carson has made only 8, at $4500.
“The Flowering Dogwood mobile is the culmination of two years studying the tree’s characteristics and the complex casting process it would take to realize my vision,” the artist says. “The mobile’s perpetual motion conveys both my desire to extend time and the sensation of its endless, inescapable flow.”
Need something on a smaller scale? Carson’s cast bronze and silk Balancing Sculptures are Zen-like paeans to nature’s beauty.
Images: Moon-Lily Silk Mobiles