Alzheimer's Illustrated: From Heartbreak to Hope

The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative is opening their newest traveling exhibit in Amherst, Ma. today. The exhibit is titled: "Alzheimer's Illustrated: From Heartbreak to Hope." And each of the quilts in that exhibit show a different perspective of how we all look at, feel, and experience, Alzheimer's in our lives ....or the lives of those we know and love.

Fifty-four small format art quilts, none larger than 9" x 12", are hung amidst 182 "Name Quilts, " each 6 inches wide and 7 feet tall, carrying the names of more than 10,000 individuals who have/had Alzheimer's or a related dementia. The names of loved ones, written on the on the purple fabric patches by family members and friends, to honor the 5.4 million Americans in the United States living with Alzheimer's.

Alzheimer's Illustrated: From Heartbreak to Hope begins its five year tour opening with the "Hands Across The Valley" Quilt Show today and tomorrow, March 26 and 27. The exhibit will hang at the Mullins Center on the University of Massachusetts Campus in Amherst, MA.
It this exhibit comes to any place near you...please go see it. And if you can, sponsor it coming to your own area for viewing.

Our own AAQI founder and executive director, Ami Simms will present two programs called "Quilting & Caring: The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative" on Saturday, March 26 at noon and again on Sunday, March 27 at 11 am. She and co-curator Kathy Kennedy-Dennis will be in attendance to speak with visitors about the exhibit.

I feel so very privileged to have these two quilts in this exhibit.


#5211 - Mama's Brain Got Tangles...but Mama's Still Inside

Michele M. Bilyeu
Salem, OR USA

Artist's Statement: Like my mother's memory, this art quilt consists of many layers, tangles, and threads...with spots of clarity and light hidden amidst the colorful (but often chaotic) surface layer.

Dedication: For my mother who continually pushes through the advancing layers and tangles of Alzheimer's with infinite grace and humor.



#6399 - The Alzheimer's Prayer

Michele Bilyeu
Salem, OR USA

Artist Statement: I grieve for the loss of my father, and honor his strength, determination, and fortitude in helping my mother face the challenges of her Alzheimer's. He lovingly cared for her, helped her to retell those memories she still retained, and brought forth the bits and pieces of her fragmented life. With this quilt and my own prayers, I pray that other care givers will have the same love and devotion that he had and care for their patients and loved ones, as the people they truly are...and not just who they seem to have become.

Dedication: In honor and memory of my father, a loving care giver, and with the deepest love for my mother who is now in her fifth year of Alzheimer's. In spite of being blind, diabetic, and unable to walk, she still reaches out her heart to us with love.


And our talented quilt make Julie Sefton, also from our Liberated Challenge group has this beautiful quilt and has also contributed to the actual quilting of some of the purple name quilts, as well.

5197 - The Puzzle Known As Alzheimer's

Julie Sefton
Bartlett, TN

Artist's Statement: Her name was Lura. The middle child, she survived her older brother and younger sister. Lura was the first woman to work in the cost accounting department before becoming a full-time mother, homemaker, and to her great joy, a grandmother to five grandsons. As we watched the woman we loved slowly disappear beneath the relentless progression of Alzheimer's, we felt powerless. Now, I stitch for AAQI and remember.

Dedication: In honor and memory of my mother, Lura Irene Ash Walton (1916-2005).

And last but not least, Jean Sophie made a quilt that also is in the exhibit.



Jean-sophie Wood
Dallas, TX USA

Artist's Statement: This piece was inspired by a tree in my backyard when I lived in Lansing, Michigan that tenaciously held onto it's last leaf through January, long after all the other leaves on all the other trees had fallen and been buried under the snow.

Dedication: For Charlie, an Irishman who lived around the corner, on the same floor as me in a an apartment building on the top of Nob Hill in San Francisco. I experienced him first as a friendly neighbor who always said hello whenever and wherever our paths crossed and later as someone who reacted in fear and confusion whenever I said hello to him. I didn't know what was going on with Charlie until the building manager told me that some family members had come from Ireland to take him back and care for him because of his Alzheimer's diagnosis.

Links:
See some of the 183 Name Quilts ...seen behind Alex and Ricky on the wall above.... on their Quilt Show on YouTube:Quilt Show with Alex and Ricky

Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative
Quilts Selected For "Alzheimer's Illustrated: From Heartbreak to Hope" Exhibit.
check out all of the art quilts in the traveling exhibit.

Name Quilts: check these out...how devastating sad and amazing that 182 quilts could be made completely out of the names of people who have or have had Alzheimer's Disease!

The Artists: Yes, I submitted my resume but they are so busy right now, they haven't had time to publish it.

Read a Review:
Stitching memories together: Weekend quilt show benefits Alzheimer's research | GazetteNET

gazettenet.com

With Heart and Hands: Alzheimer's Illustrated: From Heartbreak to Hope

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative

AAQI Update for December 2011:
You have GOT to check out some of these quilts!

For the latest info on our work with the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative go to the newer posts on this site: Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative and the Liberated Quilting Challenge

We have some wonderful new additions to our Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative donations page and our Liberated Quilting Challenge. Many of our quilters quilts are still available for sale on that page, so check them all out!

March info:
The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative 2011 March Auction is about to begin!
The Auction runs from March 1-10 and the bidding can be found on the Benefit Bidding's AAQI Auction webpage and viewed at any time. I am so excited for Kathleen and urge all of you to check out her quilt, up close and personal, and make a bid on it! Congratulations, Kathleen...way to go!!!

We have some wonderful new additions to our Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative donations page and our Liberated Quilting Challenge. Many of our quilters quilts are still available for sale on that page, so check them all out!

My last quilt 6078 - Far, Far, Away earned us $130.00 at auction, which sent me over the moon with happiness. But it is ALL of YOU and all of the quilts you make for us...day after day...quilt after quilt...that add up the fastest.

One larger amount never equals many smaller amounts.....ever. We build our army with each of us as individual quilting soldiers...and we are going to win this battle over Alzheimer's Disease....quilt by quilt, and day by day! So, bless each and every one of you!

Here are our newest additions to our 2011 Liberated Challenge quilts that have now been added to our webpage. All of our 2010 are still up for viewing, as well, preceding these newest additions.

6077 - Within the Depths ($80)	6078 - Far, Far, Away ($130)	6136 - Praise Him; Psalm 148 ($45)
6137 - Place of Safety; Psalm 9 ($30)	6138 - Happiness; Psalm 37 ($45)	6139 - Dream $35.00
6163 - Beyond The Panes ($45)	6165 - Twilight Dreams ($60)	6193 - Hobbit House
6281 - Squares in Square (SOLD)	6282 - Flowers and pink $20.00	6307 - Make Life Colorful $45.00
6308 - Liberated Star $45.00	6309 - Apple With Leaves	6331 - Scrappy Cross ($40)
6342 - Color Play ($40)	6343 - The Blues $40.00	6399 - The Alzheimer's Prayer
6416 - Whoooooo Loves Ya	6439 � Fly Away Home	6477 - Love ($50

AAQI raised more than $54,000 from its quilt sales at the 2010 Houston International Quilt and were able to donate $140,000 to Alzheimer's research in 2010.One of their $30,000 grants went to the University of Michigan, where researchers were able to make a major (and very hopeful) discovery about the blood-brain barrier and how scientists might be able to get cleanse the brain of plaques with medications etc. through that barrier to more effectively treat, combat, or possible someday prevent Alzheimer's Disease. Read about it here:
Art Quilters Finance New Alzheimer’s Discovery!

This is from a previous entry in Ami's blog:

"Our treasurer Debbie Chenail wrote checks for three of those studies on the same day. I signed them, with very moist eyes. We had two volunteers here getting the 1,000 quilts ready for Houston and before the checks went into the mail (in priority mailers, of course) the four of us each held a corner of the envelopes and we wished them Godspeed.
For us, and for most of those involved with the AAQI, this is personal. We know someone with the disease and we know how horrid Alzheimer’s is. And we want so badly to find a cure.
The Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative isn’t like other charities. We are all volunteers, we account publicly for every penny that we spend, and we hold impromptu ceremonies before we mail checks because we know what it feels like to lose someone we love one memory at time. And we know what it feels like to make a quilt and pray with each stitch that our work will help win the fight. Isn’t that the kind of charity you want to support?"

For every one who has ever donated to AAQI- those who have made a quilt or quilts, those who have purchased a quilt or quilts....thank you so very, very much.