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HERRIMAN — Joseph Barwick estimates he spent well over 200 hours creating a giant sculpture of his middle school’s mascot.
Why?
“Because it was fun,” said Barwick, a ninth-grade student at Fort Herriman Middle School. “(There was) no special reason, just fun.”
Workers helped slither the sculpture — a 400-pound, 5-foot-tall iron diamondback rattlesnake — through the hallways of the school Tuesday afternoon where it was placed in its permanent home at the school.
Prior to that, it won first place in creative arts at the Utah State Fair, which wrapped up Saturday.
The sculpture has 96 belly scales that were made from old pipe cut and molded into shape using a sledgehammer before it was welded together. It has nearly 1,000 back scales cut, ground and shaped by old burn barrel and wheelbarrows, and those were attached to a skin made out of galvanized ductwork with 3,000 hand-applied rivets, according to Brenton Barwick, Joseph Barwick's father.
However, the ninth-grader said his favorite portion of the sculpture is its head, which is made from brass gears from 19th-century era clocks and eyes made from pocket watches. The fangs were made from hay mower blade guides his great-grandparents once owned.
“It’s just different,” he said. “It’s made of metal, it’s out of school, it’s steampunk, it’s not some other kind of art. You usually don’t see steampunk stuff this large in schools.”
The process began when the 14-year-old approached his principal, Rodney Shaw, and asked if he could build the school a sculpture of its mascot, a diamondback rattlesnake.
Then came the painstaking process of putting it all together. The teen handled the brunt of the work: welding, riveting and designing the sculpture.
His father built the base — a blend of black Italian marble on the sides and limestone at the top, with copper corners. His father also helped in uses of the sledgehammer and as a human clamp while Joseph Barwick worked.
Despite the long hours and hard work, the teen said the highlight of the lengthy project was working with his dad.
“Planning out the head was fun — the rest of it was just a lot of work,” he said with a chuckle.
As for what’s next, the 14-year-old has his sights on something practical as he nears an age where he can obtain a learner permit.
“I want to build a car sometime, like an actual car for driving,” he said.
