Paperboat

Ann Miller Titus 2023

Cotton Fabric, polyester quilt batting, mat board, zip ties, cotton thread

Commissioned by Carlos Zamora, Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Cartel Strategies

It began as a conversation between Carlos Zamora and Ann Miller Titus and with a small piece of paper. Zamora began to fold the paper and to explain that as a child in Cuba he learned to make paper boats. For him, the boat was a symbol of humility, and peace. It represented vulnerability and possibility. It reminded him to stay determined in the face of adversity. The boat connected his Cuban roots with the new life and world he was building in the United States. And when all the folds were completed he held the corners of the resulting triangle and gently pulled the folds apart, revealing the hull and mast of a ship. He asked Titus if she could build a boat that would serve as a symbol for his visual branding agency in St. Louis. And Titus said yes.

Over the next few months, Titus drafted a pattern for the boat from poster board and with the help of her engineering father and brother researched how to best reinforce the boat so that it would hold its shape. She designed a quilting motif that represented the prairie surrounding the urban landscape of St. Louis. She began to machine quilt two 5’ triangles that would eventually be sewn together and then folded much in the same manner of the final folds of a paper boat. A series of adjustments were needed in order to strengthen the the sides of the boat, to maintain the curve of the hull and to reinforce the opening at the bottom of the boat. In December of 2023 the boat was installed in the offices of Cartel Strategies, located in the Post Building, former home of the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

Zamora has very graciously loaned the boat for exhibition in Hannibal as we celebrate a Juneteenth event, A Nation Takes Place: Central Mississippi River Convening on June 7, 2025.