a pinwheel...

...fashioned from the tulip

or as they used to be called in days of old - whirligigs - see... i've done my homework - boo! you didn't think i'd go and mention a toy from childhood - then not provide some fun factoids surrounding it - now did you? why, of course not... i have a reputation to uphold by gosh...

you see - pinwheels are a simple child's toy - made of a wheel of paper or plastic curls - attached at its axle to a stick by a pin... it's designed to spin when blown upon by a person or the wind... and - - it's a predecessor to more complex whirligigs - go figure... and don't you just love that word, how it twirls about on your tongue? so much fun...

whirligigs are most commonly powered by the wind - however - can be hand or friction powered - or even powered by a motor - much more sophisticated than that simple pinwheel... yet the words can be used interchangeably... not to confuse us or anything!

-during the 19th century in america - any wind-driven toy held aloft by a running child - was characterized as a whirligig - including pinwheels
-the weathervane - which dates to the sumerians in 1600-1800 bc - is the second component of wind-driven whirligigs
-george washington brought whirligigs home from the revolutionary war
-william shakespeare in twelfth night - uses the whirligig as a metaphor for "what goes around, comes around"
-whirligigs have become art - a number of museums now have collections - or examples in their collections

knowing that last little tidbit - that whirligigs, aka, pinwheels - have become art - makes me feel good - since i wasn't aware of it as i created my photo masterpiece today... how cool is that - i'm in with the times now - perhaps my work'll be noticed by someone - become popular - printed - found later hanging in an art museum for posterity - all because i had a creative idea with a simple photograph of a tulip - this classifies as...

a

happy day.....