When foreclosures began to occur in the early 2000’s, as a former urban planner, I was acutely aware of the impact this would have on our cities. However, very little was mentioned in the news about the real causes of the crisis and how widespread it had become. I began to create quilts of foreclosures maps in the hopes of capturing people’s attention around the crisis. Quilts act as a functional memory, an historical record of difficult times. The quilts are pieced together using the block patterns taken from neighborhood maps. Within these, foreclosed lots are shown as holes in the quilts. The lot locations are completely random and they yield an unexpected beauty when laid out on fabric. These torn holes question the protective nature of a quilt. The neighborhoods shown are not an anomaly; they are a recurring pattern seen from coast to coast, urban to suburban neighborhoods across the US.

Kathryn also writes a blog to inspire and inform other artists who work in the unique genre called Articraft: artists who use craft in their work and craftspeople who make art:
www.kathrynclark.blogspot.com