Babette graces a field on MICA’s campus, Paul Daniel’s dreamy work
By: Francine Marchese, March 2025
The next time you round the corner eastbound from North Avenue onto Mt. Royal Ave, slow down and look to your right.
If the season is right with no leaves on the trees, you can see Babette, a kinetic sculpture by Bolton Hill resident Paul Daniel. It is an impressive combination of grace and scale, a formative piece in an urban field on the MICA campus. And, as with most of Daniel’s work, the piece goes one step further: it moves with the wind.
When considering a sculptor’s toolbox, one conjures up images of aluminum and brass. Yes, Paul Daniel’s work is composed of physical materials such as these, yet it also delves further and utilizes what we don’t see: the wind, what we see in fleeting moments: light and shadow. It makes them all part of his palette.
Paul’s body of work comprises both consistency and variation. What is consistent: sculptures made from brass, bronze, aluminum and steel, elegant in their composition, thoughtful in their color. They incorporate kinetic elements, allowing us to see the wind through the rotations of the sculpture’s parts. Paul talks about flexibility and the flow of ideas, one thought leading to another, which impacts the process and the outcomes of artmaking.
When discussing his experience as an artist, he talks of how process is at its core. He defines this as hands-on work, aligned with reflection, pondering the elements of art, and wrestling with the physics of three-dimensional design. In his work, there is a symbiotic relationship between art and science. In his work we can appreciate the elements of visual art, line, composition, and color, and also the elements of physics as explored through movement, weight, gravity, and buoyancy.
“My commitment to wind-activated sculpture and its connection to the environment has been a passion of my my entire career. I like making things. In the process of making them, my mind is free to wander … sort of like daydreaming,” he has said.
Some of Paul’s smaller works can be seen in the front yards of Bolton Hill, where he has been a resident, with his wife Linda, also an artist, since attending the Rinehart School of Sculpture at MICA as a graduate student. Originally from Missouri, he attended Kansas City Art Institute, where he was an undergraduate sculpture student. Paul gives credit to the wide-open landscapes of the Midwest for inspiring him to create large scale kinetic sculptures.
If this article has you intrigued with Paul’s work, the first stop would be his website. Then, I would suggest taking the walk to North Avenue near Mount Royal Avenue and view Babette from a pedestrian perspective. Stay for a minute and watch the top move with the wind. Then breathe and go about your day.
Even better, head north up I-95, where five of Paul’s pieces are currently on view at the Biggs Museum in nearby Delaware. More information can be found at the Biggs Museum website.