I believe Janet Hartje The Fractured States of America

"I believe" is the theme for the group Art Quilts Around the World. (Click the link to go to the Art Quilts blog and see the wonderful entries.) This year has been a rough one for myself personally.  I've missed a couple of art quilts because I had too much going on and had to shift my focus for a little while.  A couple of bouts of therapy and a foot surgery to try to correct a problem I was born with.  I'm not running any races yet, but doing much better. 

I decided to focus on adding mixed media to my quilt this time.  So, I started with a map from an old atlas.

I wanted to use crackle paste so it would have a cracked look when it was finished, much like my country right now.  The book I was using suggested using gesso first.  The gesso made the ink run, which was ok since I knew the crackle paste I have is opaque.  

Next I added the crackle paste

Here it is dried.  It really worked!  It did shrink up a little though so I decided to cut around it because the background was rippled.

Now is the fun part I decided to use alcohol inks because I thought they would fill in the cracks and make them stand out a little more.  I looked at a topographical map while I was coloring.  Not perfect but not to bad.

So I had to audition new background fabrics.

Finally decided on this one.  The blue seemed to make the map pop and it has the names of the states!

The next decision was a saying.  I wanted to use one to encourage all of us to work together to mend our country.  It is difficult for many of us to admit we have trouble seeing different points of view, myself included.  This is what we need to work on to mend the fabric of our country.  I draw the line at anything which will harm another human being, physically, mentally, socially.  Here are a few sayings I found the most appealing.

I settled on the one by Desmond Tutu.  I could only fit a portion on the quilt since we are restricted to 16.5" x 11.5". I like that this saying encourages you to do what you can with what you have and all of us together can make big changes.  I decided to add black fabric behind the words because the background is a little busy for more words.

I added the broken heart for us to stitch together.  This has been a little bit therapeutic for me.  I bought a small piece of leather, cut out the two halves and used a paper punch to make the holes. Finally I loosely laced it with a leather strip and put the needle on their to show we still have work to do. (The photo is a little dark, Once again I was working to late to get a photo in the daylight!)

 I kept the quilting fairly simple, mostly straight lines although I did add a statue of liberty on the side of the map.  Hard to photograph so you could see it.  but here goes.

Have a creative day and do one good thing each day, we've got this. I believe we can all work together to mend the heart of America.
Janet