Legend has it that when the Vikings once attempted to attack the Scottish in the dark of night, their screams from stepping on thistles alerted the sleeping Scotsmen and they were turned back defeated. Continuing in my Garden Art theme, I have created a thistle of my own from my treasured collection of castoff lighting fixtures and renovation spoils. When I discovered our old, outdated globe in the ' to be gotten rid of ' pile I knew I had a jumping off point for my project. I took a beaten up brass lamp stand I had saved and unscrewed the many sections in order to manipulate it's structure. It was a thrilling moment when I discovered my glass ceiling shade could slip into the exposed screw joint, immediately revealing itself as the 'garden' from which my 'thistle' would spring! Because of a missing section of base I was able to do a bit of tile mosaic (extra tile from my bathroom floor project) on the base, which I see as representing the solid roots of my recycled plant. The glass shade has been filled with compost from my bin and a low maintenance grass has been planted to create the living part of the sculpture. At the top of the thistle's stem I attached the globe after painting it in several layers of acrylic. I chose to focus on the green land masses and blue water and not add extra detail so as not to distract from the fact that this is all we have...our EARTH and WATER. Everything else humans have created and we're quickly filling the landscape with our trash. Below the globe I created the spiny protective thistles from chandelier parts which I affixed to the three arms of the lamp. Where the chandelier crystals were missing I hung shards of mirror wrapped in leftover bits of copper, aluminum and picture hanging wire. They were threaded onto mismatched picture hooks and clips from the junk drawer and are free to move in the WIND. The sharp saw-toothed leaves were cut from the pleated sides of aluminum take-out food containers and also act as protective shields when the candles are lit (FIRE), just as they are there to protect the plant in nature. A thistle is considered a noxious, or poisonous, weed. Garbage is poisoning our planet. Just as the thistle once warned the Scots of impending danger, so, hopefully, will my repurposed thistle warn others of the dangers of overconsumption in our disposable society.