I made Can't Keep Me Down for the 2010 show at Saunders Farm. The site felt so big, and it is: 144 acres. I thought it would be funny to make a giant bud vase holding a giant, very tall lily, a flower big enough to hold its own in all that space.

I made the vase first. It's a four-sided wavy shape, with supports inside that hold a long tube running from top to bottom. It was a long lesson in aluminum welding. Aluminum has a low melting point, so if you don't have a light touch, you just burn a hole right through the surface. Getting those long exterior corners joined nicely meant laying down more long, pretty welding beads than I ever had before.

The stem taught me a lesson too. I first used a 1" aluminum rod, but out in the sun, the weight of the flower slowly pulled it down. I switched to stainless steel, which holds the curve I struck. The lily itself was made on a low base, and its petals are long pieces of aluminum, each one curved by hand.

Like Gate, it's modular, made to come apart and go back together easily. To assemble it, I tip the vase on its side and slide the stem into the center tube, then slide the flower onto the top of the stem and bring the whole thing back up to standing.

For travel, the vase gets screwed onto my trailer, the flower rides on a vertical support screwed onto the trailer, and the stem gets tied to the roof of my car. It's funny sometimes to watch people's faces as I drive past and they see what I'm hauling.

Today it stands at Leonia Sculpture Park in New Jersey, and it's one of my best sculptures. The title is a defiant, heels-in-the-ground statement. I'm a really great welder, which people don't often expect from a woman, and I'm an artist. I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere.