There are an estimated 1.3 million alligators living in Florida. Growing up in Miami, I always knew I might open the door and find a prehistoric sunbather lounging in the yard or under my car. When I first heard the prompt, my mind went straight there. I imagined a gator snoozing under a bank of mailboxes — but then the thought crept in: that isn’t really urban nature, at least not in the sense of a crowded city. More suburban. Fun, but not true to the spirit of the prompt. Back to the drawing board.

Walking through Qatar’s densely populated capital, I spotted a determined plant creeping up from beneath a patch of astroturf laid over concrete. The fake-grass-to-real-vine contrast perfectly fit the theme, but it wasn’t something I’d want hanging in my house later. Back to the drawing board again.

What if I went back to the words themselves? What is the most urban place I can imagine? New York City. Is there nature there? Sure—there are trees dotting the streets and shoebox-sized patches of soil with flowers. But it’s so curated; it isn’t wild. Even Central Park feels manicured like a movie set, not a lot of wildlife.

Okay, so outside is problematic. What if we look inside instead? There is more space inside these vertical pillars of concrete and steel than outside. And what lives inside? Cats.

Anyone who has spent five minutes on social media has seen the videos of…well, cats being cats. They can go from napping to tearing through the house, knocking things over as they ricochet from floor-to-counter-to-sofa with almost no warning. They may live in our homes, but they are still little balls of chaos, wildness at their core.

Domestic life, though, has changed them a bit. These aren’t their street-hardened cousins. They never feel soil under their paws or survey the world from a tree branch overhead. They’ve learned that the pigeon resting on the windowsill is out of reach and no longer waste energy trying to catch it. Even the pigeons have learned not to fear the once-predator behind the glass.

I can’t help but wonder if city cats miss the thrill of the hunt.

Title: Instinct Interrupted

Materials: batiks, quilter’s cottons, fusible web

Size: 19″ x 40″