Janet Spaulding spent hours with the bird’s eyes staring back at her. Her particular quilt block for the Memories of Birds quilt featured a blue and purple owl painted by Jean May. Though May was suffering from memory loss due to Alzheimer’s disease when she painted it, the owl’s eyes were particularly expressive.
“I thought what on earth am I going to do with it,” Spaulding said. Her job was to embellish the artist’s painting with bits of embroidery, lace, ribbon and anything else she saw fit.
The quilter finally dug into the hope chest of her mother Ruby, who died at the age of 96 after suffering from dementia. Spaulding took a delicate lace doily from the chest, cut and sewed it onto May’s square.
“After that I could get along,” Spaulding said.
The Memories of Birds quilt is part of the Denver area Alzheimer’s Association art outreach program called Memories in the Making. Volunteer artists and staff members visit care centers and teach watercolors and other art media to people with early- and mid-stage Alzheimer’s and other memory impairments. Many patients have lost their ability to speak, so painting becomes a valuable way to communicate.
“Through the painting process, often stories and memories come up,” said Gwen Ippen, state coordinator for Memories in the Making.
Ippen said that sometimes when you show a piece to an artist’s family or friends, they will recognize the theme, even if the artist cannot explain it. Sometimes relatives will recognize something as specific as the view from the family’s mountain cabin.
The pieces painted by Memories in the Making artists are donated for consideration by a panel of professional artists to be included in the Alzheimer’s Association’s annual art show. From there, nine images are chosen to make up the squares for the quilt. Spaulding’s square with May’s owl was chosen as the center of the quilt this year.
The quilt is on display at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum, 1111 Washington Ave. in Golden thanks to Senior Care of Colorado, which bought the quilt at a fundraising auction.
Volunteers from the museum and other local quilting organizations transferred the artists’ original bird images to fabric and pieced together a quilt around them. The vibrant-colored fabrics of the quilt are covered with personal touches. One woman sewed feathers into her square; another quilter used pieces of her mother’s old dress.
“I love it because every block has such a unique story,” said Cheryl English, a docent at the quilt museum whose mother died of Alzheimer’s. “I would love to do this next year.”
National Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month
November is National Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month. More than 64,000 people in Colorado have been diagnosed with the disease. For more information and to help, contact the Colorado Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association on the Web at www.alz.org/co or call the 24-hour Helpline at 800-272-3900.