In 1996-1997, June Clark was invited to be an artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem. It had been 28 years since she had returned to her hometown to live, having left for Canada during the political turbulence of the 1960's. Living in Toronto, she developed her uniquely intimate style of storytelling through a variety of photo-based image manipulations.

In creating the Harlem Quilt for the Museum, Clark, "...aimed her camera at waist-level to produce spontaneous images of people within various street scenes. She took hundreds of photographs of the neighborhoods between approximately 110th Street and 168th Street..." "In her room-sized installation, The Harlem Quilt, selected images were photo-transferred onto swatches of multi-colored, multi-textured clothing and bed linen purchased at a Harlem Salvation Army store." - Pamela Tillis

"My art asks which memories are more vivid and why? How do particular recollections enlighten me as to certain aspects of my personality and/or my seemingly inevitable reactions to events?

While creating I invariably work from the personal, but I recognize and consciously choose those incidents, thoughts, and situations that tap into a collective unconscious. I am ever mindful of viewer responses to memory as well as the collective need for realization, reclamation and redemption." - June Clark