Letter opener made from a piece of re-bar

Still needs more detail work with the grinder

“All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.”

Albert Einstein

When I went through the creation process of  my ‘Tree of Life’, I learned a lot about its concept as I found out that it has been used in religion, biology, philosophy, and mythology since the beginning of time.  

The Mayans believed that Heaven, Earth and Underworld were connected by the tree of life and all things grew since the beginning of creation by flowing through its branches.  

The center of this piece is the cross that represents the source of all creation and connects with everything, the branches come from the stump, the stump comes from the roots and the roots intertwine with the branches.  

The heart of the tree is the all-seeing Eye of God that represents faith and stability.  It’s the window to our soul, the Beginning and the End.

My 'Tree of Life' - still evolving!

This is my version of the 'Tree of Life',  and for that, I've just recently found out, what the real meaning, is that lays behind this sacred tree.

Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.Revelation 22.1-2

The back ground is made out of a small bicycle rim.  I had removed all the spokes (what a job!) and then sanded the bare rim down partially.  The Eye of God is made out of a spoon plus a part, I have no idea what it was ever useful for or where it came from!  

The cross is made from forks that I welded together, Jesus is formed by screws and lots of welding slag. Than ground down and sculpted with the 5" grinder. I'm still planing to do more detail work with the Dremel Tool.  The vine is cut out of one solid piece of metal (so is actually the whole tree including the stump!)

Ilona Rosenthal-Payne

My Art-piece called ''My Familly"

This piece started out with a nice frame but broken glass.  Sometimes the broken things can turn into something beautiful!!!  I found my daughters names in Chinese writing but couldn't find my own name so I used MOM, the bottom left tile means HOPE, the broken one stands for DREAMS, 'broken Dreams', the biggest one is LOVE, the highest one is god and the three smaller ones stand for health, beauty and joy

Portrait in Oil ''The Ex-Husband''

 'Welder at Work' 

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1st place winner in the metal class at the 2014 Queens County Fair
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Bicycle parts, wheel nut, lawn mower blade, and rotator gismo that makes the blade spin!