Monday, September 30, 2013

Silent Roar

When I started brainstorming the idea of the sound of silence, I listed, among other things, cats and snow. Then I found a quote that said something along the lines of "Silence is the name people give to the sound a mountain lion makes as it walks around the outside of your house". Mountain lions didn't click, but snow leopards did, as I had recently seen a BBC series made about monitoring snow leopards in a reserve in the bleakest part of Russia.

The more I researched, the more appropriate it became: snow leopards are headed for extinction, the ultimate silence. There are only about 5000 in the wild and all in war-torn or poacher-filled countries like Afghanistan, China, Tibet, Pakistan and India. Habitat loss and prey loss is also a big factor. For example, as fewer native blue sheep are around, because of larger shepherded flocks of domestic sheep, so leopards are killed for taking domestic sheep.

Silent roar is a phrase used of snow leopards because they are not vocally equipped to roar. They can only purr or yowl. They are unique in this among big cats.

There are some fabulous photos online of snow leopards, but this one jumped off the page demanding attention. I will credit the photographer if the quilts ever make it to the public eye.




Snow leopards have extra long and fat tails to use for balance, and small rounded ears, to minimise frost damage.

Techniques: leopard spots drawn with inktense pencils, leopard trapuntoed, shadow covered with black tulle and black Mistyfuse. Angelina highlights on the snow.

7 comments:

  1. Julia, he is beautiful, I love that he is stepping out of the picture. The uncluttered background and shadow turn the leopard into the focus without distraction

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  2. This quilt shows so much more than just sound of silence. I like the double meaning of the piece. The snow leopard also show so much silence in the way it moves. Lovely quilt

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  3. With fear comes silence! Your piece shows this so vividly - you have brought in all the holding of one's breath of watching of a beautiful but dangerous animal.

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  4. Your leopard seems to jump out of the quilt. And his eyes look like they are asking us to save him. Sabine

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  5. Julia, I loved the way you extented the leopard out of the quilt. The use of the idea (phrase) of 'Silent roar' is so clever!

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  6. Love the subject matter and the way you created this quilt. Great use of shadow and perspective. Love the way the cat is walking off the quilt and into our frame.

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  7. I love the way you have painted the leopard, very natural and life-like and the paw coming out of the frame of the quilt adds greatly to the 3D effect. Very well done.

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