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The minute I saw my newest challenge, I thought STEEL!!!!

Inspiration:
I took a welding class a year ago from a dear friend of mine, Jim Aken. I never finished the two large arches I attempted at the end of the class. They have hung on the wall on my side of the garage ever since. Three weeks ago, I hit my Magic Genie garage door opener, and "poof" the answer to my preying mantis appeared. Now I was thankful for Valentine's Day 2000 when my husband gave me a RED wire-feed welder and a chopsaw!

Structure:
The original arches had to be cropped and inserted into the 1 inch square tubing structure. The arched-structures are on detachable hinges, so they can be separated for moving. By placing the panels in a "V" formation, they are steady enough to handle the extreme front weight of the piece. The steel panel-structure is very heavy and provides a substantial framework.

Sunflowers:
The sunflowers are three separate pieces. The flowers and the backings are slumped/fused over homemade molds and form a round plate with at 5/8 inch hole in the center. The centers of the flowers are really a great deal more interesting than the photos are able to reflect. There is a huge array of concentric circles of shards of glass in beautiful colors. They are tack-fused to dark brown plates and slumped over another homemade mold. Large brass plates were silicone glued to the inside of the flower and washers were silicone glued to the backings, so that when the bolts are inserted they only rest on metal.

Stems:
The stem is a round 5/8" steel rod. A threaded flange was welded to the top of the rod, and then the flange was screwed and welded to a 90° plumber's elbow. This allowed for the bolt to be inserted from the yellow sunflower plate through the backing plate and screwed into the elbow. The centers of the flowers were silicone glued into place to cover the bolt. The stems have two hooks welded to the back so that they can be inserted into or removed from the panel for moving purposes.

Pots:
The pots are two halves of a lamp base. They were cut when they were still greenware. A sunflower design was carved into the face of each pot with a Dremel (this year's Valentine gift). Three holes were drilled for the placement of the stems. I had never glazed a ceramic pot before. The glaze I chose would show the carved pattern on the front of piece, however it was not meant for a beginner. If I put too much glaze it would run and if I put too little it would streak. I prayed and carefully applied the glaze. I was pleasantly surprised.

Leaves:
Sunflowers were chosen purposefully because of their large leaves. A model for a leaf to hold the preying mantis was created and tested. When the correct gauge steel to hold my little beauty was found, my husband went in search of scraps from a local trailer supply place. The leaves were welded to heavy steel brazen wire, painted, and then welded to the stems.

Panels:
I used three patterns from Mary McCarthy's book, Decorative Stencils as models. The pieces were painted with Reusche paints (green, yellow-gold, and blue-green). The floor of the kiln was heavily dusted with whiting, so that when firing the paints the glass would relax slightly. This technique changes the look of the glass so that it appears to look like old antique glass. The painted panels were designed to appear trellis-like and to soften the bold effect of the flowers. Otherwise, I feared the piece would look more like a metal sculpture-art and not like glass-art.

Difficulties:
I had to make a design large and heavy enough to hold the mantis and flowers and yet design it with enough forethought that it could be taken apart and moved. When I took the welding class my instructor, Jim, teased me for designing the art first and worrying about the engineering/structure last. He said I had it all backwards in my head. Nothing has changed. After I drew the design of what I wanted to do, my husband, Norm, started engineering. I would have never attempted anything so large without his contribution.

Look and Feel:
Every time I visit my flower garden, I see the beautiful blooms first, and every once in a while I discover a mantis on a stem eating all the little aphids. I wanted the viewers eye to travel the same path. I chose the bright yellow color and the vivid pattern of the sunflower centers to provide a significant focal point. The preying mantis is painted a different value of the same green as the leaves. The mantis has camouflaged itself. (Not easy for a mantis with a weight problem!!) The daisies draw the eye further down. The panels do not draw your attention, but provide architecture and support as a decorative trellis would in a real garden. Everything contributes to the interest of the piece, but the eye has no trouble returning to the focal point of the flowers themselves.

Dimensions: Each panel is approximately 30"x 60". The sunflowers are about 6 feet tall and about 14" in diameter. I took a picture standing next to the panels, my height is 5'6". I have no idea how much this piece weighs…but if the competition is by the pound, I probably qualify as the heavyweight!

       
       

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My first reaction to the "theme item" was that it was awesome. Then I started wondering what I was going to do with them. I started referring to the praying mantis as "the mantis". It was then that I thought the name sounded like a rollercoaster. And so the insanity began....

CONSTRUCTION
The track frame was built first and was definitely the most difficult part of this construction. It is made of 1/8 th inch copper coated steel welding rod. There are over 350 pieces that were cut and soldered together. Lead hobby came was used for the inner and outer rails of the track. Of course, my children insisted that the rollercoaster run, so I used HO scale flexible railroad track for the cars to run on. The cars are pulled to the top with a motor driven, cogged rubber sewing machine belt, then travel to the bottom by gravity. The fence along the track is made of brass rods and wire.

Of course, I couldn't find "the right glass" among my collection for the ground area under the coaster and the picnic area below, so I made my own. The grass is a green Uroboros with various green fragmented streamers and confetti tack fused on. The gravel under the picnic table is a brown and white streaky with crushed tan, brown, gray and black glass tack fused on. I made the stone walkways out of a light gray Spectrum. I cut and then roughly grozed the "stones" out of a medium gray, tan and brown. The stones were then sponged painted with different shades of semi-opaque and transparent colors and then tack fused on.

The outside of the rollercoaster base is purple antique mirror and mirror alternated.

The handrail posts on the stairs and around the deck in the loading area are brass fishing swivels with hobby lead as the rail.

The round bevel was pie sectioned and combined with several colors of irridized Spectrum to make the 2 umbrellas.

The chairs are made out of glass candies for the seats along with wire and brass rods.

The rollercoaster cars are made out of black chorded irridized Uroboros. Dichroic glass was fused to the sides for decoration. The heads are glass nuggets with beads for eyes.

The mantis was airbrushed. It is soldered to a heavy gauge twisted copper wire that serves as the vine for the foliage. The wire vine plugs into copper tubing that extends through the base and is soldered to the framework below. This allows the mantis to be removed for transporting and is bearing no weight on the glass below it.

CHALLENGES
Definitely the 2 biggest obstacles were the framework for the track and the distribution of all the weight. Since I wanted the coaster on an elevated platform, I had to minimize most of the weight from the track and the mantis from the top surface. Many of the coasters vertical support beams extend through the glass and are soldered to the support structure below, as is the praying mantis. It was also very challenging to build this on such a small scale. It would have been much easier to have made it a little bigger, but the possibility of having to find a way to transport projects across the country forced me to think small. Although this was a very fun project to build, the short period of time I had to build it made it totally insane. Everybody ought to try something like this at least once.