Eileen Gay — Mosaic Artist and Sculptor

Route 66 West Gateway at Crystal City Shopping Mall, 4261 Southwest Boulevard, Tulsa, Oklahoma

Floating Hanger was inspired by the idea of machinery and motion and Tulsa and its part in the oil industry, keeping the machinery of America going. The sculpture represents all of those things in the form of a ring and pinion gear, a basic part in machinery. The imagery around the inside of the ring gear tells of transportation through time, up to the current age of space exploration. Included are Oklahoma’s state dinosaur, the Acrocanthosaurus, and state bird, the scissor-tailed flycatcher. Above, a spacecraft is shown heading for what might be the moon in the night sky of the mosaic.

The name, “Floating Hanger,” refers to oil field worker slang for a “jack-of-all-trades,” or some think it might be a part of an oil rig. The artist leaves it up to you to decide. Either way, this public art installation is a gift for Tulsa, in celebration of its oil and transportation history and as part of Route 66.