Mixed Media Fiber Artist: Alzheimer's Quilt

Alzheimer's Disease

"We don't know how strong we are until being strong is the only choice we have" Alzheimer's Disease Awareness

Most people I know either are intimately connected to Alzheimer's Disease or know someone who is. It is a life changing disease, with no boundaries. It is not particular who it attaches itself to, young, old, happy, sad, rich or poor.

In honor of all those I know and those I don't I've created a quilt depicting my creative thoughts about Alzheimer's disease.

I dedicate it to my sweet loving mother in law Patricia Grandon who has loved and accepted me for the past 35 years into her loving arms. I don't know how much longer she will know who I am, however I cherish every single moment she still does.

Also dedication goes to all my family members afflicted with this horrific disease, which not limited to our grandfathers, uncles, cousins, and grandmothers.

Let us not forget the caregivers whom dedicate their lives to making sure their loved one with Alzheimer's is able to stay in their homes as they selflessly give up their own life.

Now to the making of the quilt!

The concept begins: I examined my close experience with my mother in law to sum up how her disease is progressing, what she has shoved in the corner of her mind (faded memories) while focusing on a few items. For her, she doesn't remember or even think of putting on her lipstick before family pictures are taken, nor does she know many Sundays have passed and she has not been at church and she has not colored or cut her hair in years.

The things she focuses on most are her dog and the neighboring feral cats. The dog has become her "baby" and often times she won't leave the house because her "baby" can't come.

The design concept continues. As my mother in law's world becomes smaller and smaller she is confined to her home and she doesn't realize it. Her memory gets pushed further and further to a corner of her home and is left there. This depicts a room in her home with her memory in the right hand corner.

All the parts are beginning to come together.

The sewing has begun, the tedious work of sewing down all of these "stepping stones" which represent the path to her home.

Sewing down all the paths leading to the things that consume her life, her dog (her baby), and cat (s). You can see her memory behind the netting, contained and protected but removed.

Hundreds of threads are buried!

The tangles in the brain of Alzheimer's victims. These will be trimmed and secured with Swarovski Crystals.

Detail work of floating memories that settle anywhere, hundreds of Swarovski Crystals hold done all the tangles in the brain representative of Alzheimer's Disease.