I just about have this piece complete. It’s appeared in many previous posts as a work in progress. I took it outside today to see if there was enough breeze to turn the whirligig, but there wasn’t. Too bad.

It’s inspired by the story of the prodigal in Luke 15:11-32. There are two golden babies on it for the two brothers in the story. One spins endlessly from beneath the whirligig and the other is suspended from the mixer beater and gets yanked around as the whirligig spins. There’s a lot of excess and a lot of joy in finding the lost (as in: finding beauty in trash).

If you’re wondering what it’s made out of, the answer is a lot of stuff I found. The only thing I actually purchased for the piece was glitter. Other materials are: rusty bed springs, a coat hanger, pop/beer cans, twist ties, shower curtain rings, Mardi Gras babies, old beads, old jewelry, gold leaf (yes, it came to me second hand), cardboard, sewing machine bobbins, a beater I found in the street, half an ornament I found in the street, a ballerina cake decoration (OK, so I bought that years ago at a junk store with the intention of using it for art), an old needle case, odds and ends off some Christmas crackers, fabric leftover from something else, a star from a stuffed animal, a Barbie leg, and wire.