Love Melts ICE

 It doesn't have an official name, but if it did, I think it would be Love Melts ICE.  

Poets write.  Singers sing.  Painters paint. So I wanted to represent in beads what I have seen and experienced here in Minnesota in the last months.  The best words I have to explain it is an illegal ethnic cleansing by military goons.  It's been frightening, it's been sad, it's been an economic disaster.  But I don't like things that are hateful and ugly, so I have tried to allow my representation of ICE to be more organic and beautiful than it actually has been.

The most important point of the work, for me, is that Minnesotans have stood up against unlawfulness and cruelty.  By being kind.  By making it clear that what we are seeing every day is simply not OK, and supporting neighbors as we are able.

So I began with a heart, purchased long ago from an glass artist, Alana Reifel, from Michigan.  I looked her up to see if I could link to her art glass, and discovered she is no longer living.  I hope she would have appreciated the use I am making of her beautiful blue heart.  Blue for Minnesota and our many lakes. Blue for our cold.  But not our hearts.

I made a pattern, and cut a heart out of white heavy weight pellon backing.  I dug through my lace scraps to find some scrollwork that suited the scale, arranged it to my liking,  and fused it to the pellon.  then I glued the heart in place and cured it overnight.  I am usually a person who bezels focals, even when I am embroidering.  I never feel like they are safe without being secured in place, as below.

But in this case, no one, and no hearts, are genuinely safe.  So I figured this one should not be either.  I first used some blue beads with a finish similar to the heart, to draw some growing tendrils of warmth through the work, used the leaf motifs like little signs of spring melt.  Then I began icing over the rest of the heart.  

I worked at icing for about a week, and then made a mistake.  But given that this process was very improvisational and not at all "designer-ly" (no sketches, either on paper or in beads were made) mistakes are a natural part of any learning process.  The two steps forward, one step back dance I am used to, might have saved me from it. but nope, it crossed my mind and I just did it.

I thought "It doesn't need to be so strictly a heart.  I could round off the edges and make it a more organic shape."  But sadly, I forgot one of the problems with any symmetrical construction that has a center and then two elements on either side.  It either becomes a face, (in this case a rather pudgy one!) or if there are just two appendages on either side of the focal component... well, I'll let your imagination run with that one.  But sadly, neither is good.  SO.  I glued and stitched the heart shape back in place and proceeded with the icing.  For those who know me, I went through a lengthy cake decorating phase, before I discovered beading.  The implications all fit.  

Finally, the entire face was "iced", and I glued on a white leather backing. You can see where I added the heart shapes back on, and bumps from my knots. Edges are finished with what for me is a buttonhole stitch, that includes a bead.  And then I could not resist doily-fing the edge with some picots, and drippy drops to indicate melting.  I believe backs should be beautiful too, and always do my best to get stitches neat and even, but improv leaves it less than perfect.  

You might also note the neck strap visible here without the distraction of the front.  One evening, people in Minneapolis made a huge SOS on Lake Bede Maka Ska, and I wanted to encorporate that distress signal in my work, so the Morse Code dots are represented by Czech Fire Polish beads, and the dashes, by bugle beads.

Often my large, gaudier work is for special occasions only, but I'm going to wear this frequently, and yes, as beaders often joke, even to the grocery store.  Like, right now.  And maybe every day.

I love you all.  I am a centrist, who has leaned both right and left over the course of my voting life.  But it does not take a rocket scientist to see that "something is rotten in the state" today.  I hope we can join hands and reclaim our democracy, before it is too late!