Timeless Treasures

This year, a bunch of us artists from the Indian American Artists Association got this amazing opportunity to create drapes for the Great Elephant Migration project. More about this initiative to conserve elephants in India here.

This October, these sculptures came to Livermore and we got to see them in person and make these unique pieces of art for them.

I made a playful quilt for a baby elephant with an environmental message. 

This quilt is made with my son's old plastic and polyester toys on an old curtain. He received these toys  mostly in party favor bags with which he played for a while and forgot about. I did not want to throw them so have been collecting it since the last few years.

I have given it the look of a kantha quilt and in the way that Indian folk art and textiles makes use of motifs inspired by everyday items and memories, this quilt has everyday toys around me which I want to preserve.

I am calling this Timeless Treasures and I want to bring attention to the materials which can last for generations, yet are often treated as disposable.

What if we saw these for what they really are: precious, long-lasting resources worth treasuring, reusing, and keeping out of landfills?

I want Timeless Treasures to be a reminder to rethink what we throw away. 

More drapes by the other fellow artists here.