Foreclosure Series Favorite 

Practitioner: 

Date: 

May 4 2012

Location: 

San Francisco CA

"It
was important to me to present the whole story in a way that would
captivate people’s attention and make a memorable statement. Making
quilts seemed an ironic solution. Quilts act as a functional memory, an
historical record of difficult times.  It
is during times of hardship that people have traditionally made quilts,
often resorting to scraps of cloth when so poor they could not afford
to waste a single thread of fabric.  The
patterns for the quilts are based on neighborhood maps. The quilt is
pieced together using patterns of neighborhood blocks taken from
RealtyTrac 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
situation is so dire that even a quilt can’t provide the security one
needs. The neighborhoods shown are not an anomaly; they are a recurring
pattern seen from coast to coast, urban to suburban neighborhoods across
the US. The problem has not been solved, it is still occurring, just
changing shape, affecting more of us." (From Clark's project explanation on site.)

Posted by mariamaria on