About this quilt
Anna Mae Keeley was my mother. She had dementia. It was frustrating for her, heartbreaking for me.
Her days were like the little vignettes on this quilt. She had good days where she was alert, happy, funny, and talkative. And then she had bad days where she was unhappy, tired, and beset with confusion and frustration. But mostly her days were a mix of both.
Occasionally she surprised me with some sparks of her former self among the tangles of thoughts, memories, and events as she tried to connect the threads of each day. The only constant was that each day was a new day, and it usually began as a good day, but there was little or no memory of the day before, and no thoughts about tomorrow.
A few years ago she asked me to make her a lap quilt. She and I worked together on it, which meant so much to me. But soon after she didn't remember our working together on it. The quilt held no meaning for her. The vignettes of this quilt are made from the scraps of that quilt.
Exhibited at
- 49th Hamilton Current: Hamilton’s Local Art Competition held at the Fitton Center for Creative Arts, 2019
Making the background
I created an hombre collage of my hand-dyed fabrics. After the background was sewn together, I raw-edge appliquéd the scraps from my mother’s quilt.
Anna Mae Keeley at age 95
Born November 29, 1923 - Died May 9, 2021