After high school Calder entered engineering college. He couldn't find an interesting job after graduation so he signed up as a fireman on a big ocean liner where he would sleep on the deck and study the moon and stars.

At age 25 Calder decided he wanted to be an artist. He attended the Art Students League and began going to the zoo for hours to sketch the animals, drawing them as simply as he could.  In the 1920s he discovered a new world of motion: the circus (Ringling Bros. & Barnum & Bailey).  He went back every day for two weeks.  He began building his own circus which grew to 55 people and animals which actually moved by springs, cranks strings.  He gave "performances."

Calder moved to Paris where he was known for his "circus parties." He worked in wire and was known as "wire king."  He liked to hang figures from the ceiling where they could be struck by a breeze.

When Calder visited Piet Mondrian's studio, he encountered a wall full of red, blue and yellow rectangles.  Mondrian had been playing with their arrangement. Calder asked, "What if they moved by themselves?" Calder then switched from realism to abstract shapes. He first used cranks and small motors but  switched to wind.when he encountered too many mechanical problems.

Working with (asymmetrical) balance, Calder began with the smallest element and moved up to larger ones.