We Can Use This Map

We Can Use This Map, copyright Linda Ruel Flynn, 2009.
(Please do not use this image without permission. It is not nice. Just ask.)

This is the piece I sent off to the Surface Design Members' Exhibit in Kansas City, MO. I began a series of 'whole cloth' quilts that are grounded in daily news reports of loss of land mass, polluted water, displaced species etc. I began to think about the need for our own maps. What would we use to guide ourselves when the cartographers can't keep up with the ever changing landscape? This piece is a glimpse of what the other quilts look and feel like. A map made by an amateur cartographer, used by a community, folded, torn, changed on a whim. It is a tool. I take great inspiration from the American slave quilts used as maps and communications during the underground railroad.