1” x 1”, Glass
Without a safe space we all struggle. It’s been painful to listen to the news about families being separated at the border and to think about where the children who find themselves suddenly alone are sent. What could those spaces do to comfort them? To make them feel safe in such a scary and lonely moment? I live in a sanctuary city. So at some level the city’s policies keep people safer from deportation and separation but they don’t solve the problems of flawed immigration policy and global inequity. The pendant design evokes the colored glass and dark lead lines of the stained glass windows that adorn so may of the sacred spaces that have served as political sanctuaries for centuries. But the glass is broken horizontally to leave jagged edges and irregularities because no sanctuary is fully protecting, and we won’t be finished with our work as a sanctuary city until all families feel safe. Ironically, or appropriately, as I cut away the clear glass from the top of the tiles to build them into the sanctuary pendant, the pieces that fell away looked like ICE.
