Ground Cover was created by Ann Morton to unite blanket making, one of the oldest of “homemaking’” arts, with the need to provide comfort and warmth for the homeless. Rallying more than 300 quilters, knitters and “blanketeers” from twenty-two U. S. states and two provinces in Canada, Morton produced a 117’ x 50’ ground cover of 300 hand-made blankets forming a colossal image of lush desert flowers. Each of the smaller blankets included twenty-eight 10” x 10” squares. Morton designed the squares and their colors to act as “pixels” in the overall image. The monumental blanket was displayed on a vacant lot at 1st and McKinley Streets in downtown Phoenix on December 6 and 7, 2013, After the two-day installation, Morton and her team of “blanketeers” and helpers disassembled the “ground cover” and gave the 300 blankets – each measuring 40 inches- by 70-inches -- to social service agencies to distribute to homeless people in the Valley and elsewhere in Arizona.
“Ground Cover" was commissioned by the City of Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture’s Public Art Program with support from a National Endowment for the Arts “Our Town” grant as part of Phoenix’s “Cultural Connections,” a series of temporary artworks commissioned by the City of Phoenix, the ASU Art Museum, and Roosevelt Row Community Development Corporation.
