Sunday, May 22, 2011

A beautiful break up


This week my iceberg-making has shifted from a close-up full-length 3-D model berg to an aerial view, looking down on the break up of an ice sheet.

Unless you've been hiding your head under a rock (like most politicians apparently), you surely know that if, or more likely, when one of the really great ice sheets at either pole begins breaking up, that's the tipping point at which sea levels are expected to rise dramatically and sea temperatures to shift decisively enough to oh, I don't know, reverse the Gulf Stream or something and then we'll really see climate change, oh boy.

It's not something to look forward to, my beloved Antarctica breaking up and melting away. But we'll no doubt watch it on Google Earth and You Tube and it will be breathtakingly beautiful as well as a terrifying portent of doom.

What I particularly enjoy about making this piece is that I carry around the individual bergs in a little bag and can stitch on them anywhere, any time. And now that I am starting to attach the finished bergs to the background and stitch in a cold, deep ocean between, there are many happy hours of nice and easy flat blanket stitch. After wrestling with two major sculptural pieces, this one feels like a breeze.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Oh gather them togather.. keep the ice cap safe!