Filed under: Los Angeles, Q&A | Tags: 97, Ellen C. Caldwell, Foreclosure Map Quilts, Kathryn Clark, NAP, NAP #97
Kathryn Clark’s (NAP#97) sewn pieces draw on an established quilting aesthetic and tradition. Visually, they evoke memories of my grandma’s quilts, patch working, and hand-sewn labors of love. Thematically, they record and capture a history.
Kathryn Clark | Modesto Foreclosure Quilt, 2011. 16″ x 42″ Tea stained voile, linen, cotton and embroidery thread.
Clark builds upon and tweaks this quilting tradition though. Quilts have always captured a history, personal narrative, or story in more ways than one, whether memorializing a person with scraps of clothing, or depicting monumental events in one’s life, or by capturing a family’s history in cloth. Clark’s cloths tell a similar story, but they do so by freezing a moment forever in time. Mapping foreclosed neighborhoods and cities, Clark’s “Foreclosure Map Quilts” quite literally preserve a changing landscape and document the current economy using remnants, found cloth, and fibers as the conservatorial glue. Her quilts are rich, contextually, historically, and visually. - Ellen C. Caldwell, LA Contributor
