While studying mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Jerome Kirk was deeply impacted by an exhibition of Alexander Calder’s sculptures at the school’s New Gallery at Charles Hayden Memorial Library during his senior year. Kirk’s first mobiles, which date from after his graduation in 1951, bear the influence of the elder artist’s work. Orbit, one of two works by Kirk in the collection, was commissioned specifically for Storm King, and its highly polished and reflective surfaces are characteristic of his style. The form of Orbit resembles a solar system, its concentric circular forms spinning gently and easily in the wind. Kirk has, in fact, imagined the sculpture’s movement out in the universe: “Natural forces provide fixed parameters within which I have to work, but the forms and shapes are largely intellectually and emotionally derived. A static sculpture would not change if moved from the face of the earth, however, kinetic sculpture would behave very differently on the moon or outer space.”