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Art is Ageless® calendar winner

Gerry began quilting 15 years ago to stay busy after her husband passed away. Gerry started this quilt in 2011, and it took two years to finish. Gerry has made a quilt for each of her granddaughters.[/caption]

Gerry Matney never expected to win first place for her quilt in this year’s Art is Ageless® competition at Arkansas City Presbyterian Manor. So when she learned her handmade entry had been chosen to appear in the 2018 Art is Ageless calendar, she was overwhelmed.

The first place winners from every Presbyterian Manors community are entered into a masterpiece level competition, from which artwork is chosen for the calendar and Art is Ageless note cards. The calendars are available this month.

“I was most surprised, I really was,” Gerry said. “I didn’t know they did that.”

Gerry has been sewing since she was 9 but didn’t start quilting in earnest until about 15 years ago. She likes to work on them while she watches TV -- she says she can’t just sit there, she likes to keep busy with her hands. Gerry liked the pattern of her winning quilt because it wasn’t really a pattern at all.

“I just put it together as I go. This particular pattern I call hodgepodge. I put orange and pinks together, reds and blues -- whatever color I pick up, I put together. There’s no rhyme or reason, no pattern. It’s nice because you don’t have to worry” about things lining up, she said.

Gerry’s granddaughter, Casey Zavala, is a medication aide in our memory care neighborhood. Gerry said Casey has asked for her help with a T-shirt quilt she wants to make for her dad. “I told her, I won’t do it for you, but I will help you do it,” Gerry said. “It’s going to be more of a project than she knows, I think!”

Gerry has also contributed quilts for auction in support of Relay for Life, a fundraiser by the American Cancer Society for cancer research. “They had an auction online this last year and I had one in that. They liked it real well,” she said. “It’s a cause that’s near to me.”

Congratulations to Gerry on her Art is Ageless accomplishments, along with all of this year’s winners!

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