My Blogger's Quilt Festival Entry, Fall 2012: Bracelet of Kingdom

Congratulations to Rebekah Dundon, Favorite Art Quilt winner in the Blogger's Quilt Festival Fall 2012, for "Looking Out." (Click linked "Looking Out to see her winning quilt.) Great job, Rebekah!

"Bracelet of Kingdom," a Hippo Mom Under Water, 2010, 29.5" by 20.5"

Above, my entry for this year's Bloggtually very flat and true.
er's Quilt Festival. I completed this quilt in 2010, and it measures 29.5" by 20.5" -- and it's ac
The photo (below), that inspired this quilt (above), was one of a series I took at the San Diego Zoo's "Hippo Encounter," using a simple Point and Shoot camera, back when this Mama had a little baby.

"Bracelet of Kingdom," the photo I took at the San Diego Zoo's Hippo Encounter.

Three photos in this series seriously want to be art quilts. So far, this is the first. If Mama hippo looks different than most hippos you have seen, it's because she is under water and her face has become super-compressed; like when you have pressed all the air out of a plastic baggie. Also, she has no spark in her eye, as you would see in portraits of most humans and animals. That's because she has a thick film over her eye to protect it while under water -- sometimes for over 30 minutes at a time. To get a better idea, see my inspiration photo, above. By the way, in my art endeavors, it's super typical of me to want to represent an almost impossible photo, angle, or feeling. Typical.

Inspiring the quilt's title: Bracelet of Kingdom, from an African fabric.

Bracelet of Kingdom

What a strange title, you might say: "Bracelet of Kingdom." Well, this fabric showed up in my African fabric stash, with golden images of bracelets and the legend, in neon orange, "Bracelet of Kingdom." I thought of how all our lives, human and animal, are connected, as if in a round circle, like a bracelet. You see, the hippo kills more human beings each year than any other species on Earth (except other humans, sadly). I got a spark from that: maybe to sew the quilt's backing with the Bracelet of Kingdom fabric would send out a tiny prayer to the Earth and anyone else who is listening: Let's respect each other and all species: and make space for all species. It's our human encroachment that causes this fatal tension between hippos and humans. I know, that with kindness and just putting our heads together, we can find a way to make room for all.
With affection,
Tina in San Diego

PS: Techniques include fabric collage, thread painting, and machine and hand quilting.. I started this quilt in a workshop with Susan Carlson at Asilomar in 2010. I designed, machine appliqued, and quilted it. I'd guess my best categories for the Blogger's Quilt Festival, Fall 2012, would be Art Quilt, Machine Applique, and Animals.