A dream come true...
An Enchanted Reverie
1st prize ribbon at IIQF 2021, Theme Quilt category
Has it been only 3 years? Somehow it feels like more ... I had just made my first art quilt, Gathered Treasures ... my friend Marianne came home for a quilting meet and said casually “ have you thought of entering into a quilt competition?” . Have I ?! oh god, I’ve dreamed of it ! Every time I saw a quilt that was displayed at an award show on Pinterest, it took my breath away... my imagination running wild showing me images of my faceless quilt hanging there with my name Sindhu Aragam and country India right beside it. Ah, what a fantasy! And that’s what it was ...a fantasy, a daydream ....until Marianne asked me this question. Suddenly someone (other than family, who are totally obligated to praise me to the skies😇) thought I had some mettle , enough at least to enter a competition! It’s like a light bulb went on in my head, really really really bright ...reminding me every day that it’s time to start making a head start towards realising this dream - to someday participate in a quilt show.
Of course , just because the bulb was burning bright didn’t mean that I made the quilt, entered into a competition immediately ! 😳 I wish !That’s a perfect world scenario...I had other things going on, and frankly, the drive to make an art quilt wasn’t there. I had made something for a very special occasion and really, I was not looking forward to spending another month or more on something like this. That’s when the light bulb in my head started flickering. Really extremely annoying ! You see, I had gotten pretty good at ignoring the bright light, but the flickering was hard to ignore. I started again to spend hours and hours on Pinterest, looking loving admiring Quilts , not necessarily just art quilts...but, the flickering didn’t stop. I started seeing every photo , every scene as a quilt. Took lots and lots of photos that I discarded soon after...because really, I wasn’t going to make anything. The flickering increased !
Though it was most definitely not an effort to tame the flickering, I jumped at the opportunity to create Remember when ... art quilt, again for a special occasion, and the flickering stopped. I didn’t have to wait for it to start again for me to start planning an entry to the India International Quilt Festival. There was an awesome event happening right at my doorstep and I finally had not some, but lots of time to make something for it .... almost a year and a half ! I know, I know ... that’s the problem right there - lots of time !😳 Is there really such a thing?!
The next four months breezed by just trying to figure out what to make ! By the time I had an idea, COVID hit. While the lockdowns and house full of people made life more domestic in terms of more housework, cooking etc , all efforts to somehow get some quilting done, even if it was just traditional piecing, proved fruitful. Before I knew it, it was October ... but no headway on making a quilt for the show. Luckily, the idea was already done, thinking and working it out in my mind while a broom or dishrag was in hand. 😅 Since I didn’t already have a project in mind, I decided to participate in the Theme Category of IIQF, the theme being Floral Rhapsody” . Not one to be enamoured by flowers for more than two seconds, this one was a bit challenging. The one image of flowers that stayed in mind though, was of the Bollywood songs filmed in a field of flowers with the protagonists engrossed in a song and dance! A very captivating scene, irrespective of the actors or the location or the flowers in it ... all you had to do was listen to the song and you would be transported here to this scene. The mood that the music creates is something that every Bollywood fan knows ! So yeah...I had my idea right there. 😃
Well, now comes the fun part. How do you put what’s in your head onto fabric ? Needs a plan ....a drawing or a template of what to follow....what comes where and how....a proof of concept. I picked out some photos of tulip fields. As for the figure in the photo....the actor(s) ...the longer I thought, the more convinced I was of this - what is more quintessentially Bollywood than a beautiful actress in a chiffon saree with an exaggerated Pallu(the flowing end of the saree) engrossed in the rhapsody ? So mixed up a few photos of Sridevi(the one who made the chiffon saree popular), and some other modelling photos of women in sarees to get the stance I needed. Then mixed this up with one of the tulip field photos that best suited this stance, and voila! I had proof of concept. I then used a couple of apps to stylise this photo ....it was too real-ish , and I wanted dream-ish to depict the image that is in our minds the moment we hear this song.
Once I had this photo, I made a rough line drawing of it. The planning was done. As for time, it was really running out and I now had less than 30 days to make an entry for the show. I know the execution is no mean feat, and 30 days isn’t a lot of time, but I’m no stranger to working all night as previous projects have shown! A few process photos below....
Long story short, I finished it in the nick of time and entered it too !
Artist statement
Show me a mustard field in bloom, and I"ll show you a couple having their own DDLJ moment. What is it about a field of flowers that makes Bollywood break into a song and wax rhapsodic about love?
Be it the radiant sarson ke kheth (mustard fields) of North India or the vibrant tulip fields of Europe, Bollywood is there in its saree-clad avatar, with extravagance and glamour, complete with song and dance in the imagery to captivate us in endless rapture!
What remains with us is a technicolor dream-like sequence where we are Sridevi in the flowery hillside of Switzerland, Rekha in the tulip fields of the Netherlands, or Kajol in the mustard fields of Punjab, in an incredible mood and melody with an imaginary Amitabh, Rishi, SRK there with us!
Happy to say it won the 1st prize ribbon in the Theme Quilts category at the IIQF!💃 check out the winning quilts at the Winners Gallery or all the beautiful quilts at the Gallery....real eye candy! This is not the end of the story ... for I just entered this quilt into the Judged Show at Houston Quilt Festival ...a Quilt Show that I’ve seen and admired from across the world ! Will my quilt pass the jury....remains to be seen. But needless to say, making a quilt to enter in a competition has been something I’ve been dreaming of for a long time ...and is now realised.
But there’s always another show to enter, always another quilt to make....so I’m sure this dream continues to be revived in spite of being realised, annoying flicker and all !
Happy Quilting !