Alzheimer's Illustrated: From Heartbreak to Hope continues its five-year journey across the United States with a stop at Portland, Oregon's NW Quilting Expo.
This amazing traveling exhibit is a series of black walls, creating a walking maze, which consists of fifty-four small format art quilts (9" x 12") which all illustrate in a variety of ways and thematic emphasis, the impact that Alzhimer's Disease has had on the artists who created them. These small art quilts are hanging among 182 "Name Quilts," each 6 inches wide and 7 feet tall, which carry the names of more than 10,000 individuals who have/had Alzheimer's or a related dementia. The names of these loved ones, written on fabric patches by family members and friends, honor the 5.4 million Americans in the United States struggling with Alzheimer's disease.
As a volunteer for AAQI, with 13 family member names among the "Name Quilts" and two of my own small format art quilts among the 54 art quilts, I felt so personally connected to both this cause and to this exhibit.
Perhaps, that opinion is based on my having two of my own little small format art quilts on display, and the pride that I felt also viewing the two quilts from the members of my AAQI Liberated Quilting Challenge group. But really and truly, there is a depth, and a breadth, and a far reaching scope to this exhibit that simply surpasses making beautiful quilts in an artistic fashion for a simple art challenge.
So, no matter how creative the other challenge exhibits might have been there..and I visited each and every single one and loved them....still, there was no comparison for viewing, and feeling, the hearts and the souls of true art quilters who create for a genuine cause of true purpose. There is simply no comparison!
As I wandered through the maze shaped exhibit, I found myself both slowing down to truly feel the raw emotions the quilts evoked and then speeding up to not have to feel so painfully and personally, each and every step of the way.
You have to allow yourself to feel, but keep from going into the sheer tragedy of this disease and what it has done to your loved ones, yourself, and the dynamics of the entire family. And trust me, this is something that cannot be explained, but only felt through the tears and the ripped out and torn seams of the inner heart.
My first 'go through' was a quick one. We were early, and there were few visitors as I headed to this exhibit first. But the lovely and gracious docent, Sue, who was just plain 'great Scot' awesome at what she does, and the magic she contributed there, immediately connected with us, listened with an open heart to my own story, and before long, there was a group gathered around me to 'over hear' and 'over heart' my story.
As I looked at the faces of those viewing all of the quilts, one by one, I knew that each, and every person there had their own story... and my own heart opened to bursting.... so that I had to pull back just a bit, in order to do what I had to do and both feel yet document this exhibit for all eternity within my own spirit.
But here, at Expo, in this exhibit, I wanted and needed to chronicle the journey through this exhibit. To see the quilts, and view the words..but also to take photos..as many as I could, so that others might find their own quilt online instead of just my own and those of the other two quilters of this group. More photos can be found at my own blog With Heart and Hands as I will also be posting there, and at my personal AAQI Quilting Blog, as well, where I share the huge, and amazing realization that I had as I viewed this exhibit.
It's important to me the share the 'walls' and the name quilts on them and surrounding our little art quilts, for the depth, and the breath, and the width, and the scope is all in the names.
During this display...you see many, many walls...here is my first quilt on my own first wall...
And below, my second quilt on my second wall....
And here is Julie Sefton's quilt on her wall....
And below is Jean-sophie Wood's wall...
***Our three Liberated Challenge quilters and their quilts are:
Michele Bilyeu:
Among the 47 quilts that I have donated so far, are two of my quilts that I feel so very blessed to have on display as part of this traveling exhibit. They are:
#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.
***
Julie Sefton:
And our talented quilt make Julie Sefton, also from our Liberated Challenge group, who had created and donated 75 quilts to AAQI, not only made has this beautiful quilt but has also contributed to the actual quilting of some of the purple name quilts, as well.
Julie Sefton
Bartlett, TNArtist'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.
Jean-sophie Wood:
And last but not least, Jean-sophie Wood contributed this little quilt. It is the only quilt she has donated to date, but it made this traveling exhibit and I hope it will challenge other quilters to make evne one quilt and donate it to this cause..because look at the impact that is possible!
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.
"Alzheimer's Illustrated: From Heartbreak to Hope"
Click here to learn more about this extraordinary exhibit
and how you can bring it to your community.
Click here to learn more about this extraordinary exhibit
and how you can bring it to your community.
