Teaching Artist Nephelie Andonyadis of Arts for the Aging facilitated the creation of a collaborative art project among senior participants of the City’s Adult Day Services Center (ADSC), located adjacent to the Nannie J. Lee Recreation Center. The project began in January 2024 through creative encounters with artworks from The Phillips Collection and developed through time spent together in reflective and imaginative storytelling and hands on art making, which culminated in May 2024.

Inspired by Horace Pippin’s painting, Domino Players, the participants shared stories of home, of family, of emotional safety, resilience, ingenuity and creativity and imagined themselves in the picture as they wrote collaborative stories inspired by the painting. The seniors loved the formal elements of Domino Players-- the shapes, composition and color palette-- and made personal connections with the details of the setting, clothing and activities of the family represented in the image. They delighted in the sounds, smells and feelings of the details the artist painted including the wood stove, the lantern, lace, clock, dominoes and the patch blanket being sewn. It is the patchwork blanket in the painting that inspired the group to create their own collaborative patch blanket!

The ADSC artists also spent time looking closely at reproductions of Mary Lee Bendolph’s quilt Housetop Variation, commenting on the colors, patterns and texture of this work. They recalled stories of mothers, aunties, and grandmothers, who made beautiful, practical, treasured patch blankets and shared more stories of warmth, resilience, comfort and creativity. Participants loved learning about Mary Lee Bendolph and her connections with her community. Through all of this, they explored themes around the five senses of home, and what home means to us, and created a space of creative conversation and shared warmth as a group working together.

An outing to The Phillips Collection Museum, in Dupont Circle, hosted by Donna Jonte, Head of Experiential Learning with the Phillips Collection, allowed the group to visit Mary Lee Bendolph’s quilt, Housetop Variation, displayed in the gallery.  The trip provided a chance to see the texture, scale and detail of the artwork up close and feel its power in person, and also an opportunity to experience the work in the context of other artists’ works as they are displayed in the museum.

To make the quilt, the group started by exploring different colors and textures of fabrics chosen to echo the color palette of Domino Players and of Housetop Variation. Each artist created an individual quilt square by choosing and composing small pieces in a way that was pleasing and expressed an idea of home. Some added touches of lace, doilies and buttons. Others kept it simple, choosing to create balanced, dynamic expressions that felt right. Participants were invited to include scraps of fabric from their own lives that hold memories of a special person, place or time. These details are visible when looking closely at the finished quilt.

Once the individual squares were complete, they assembled them into a community quilt, talking, laughing and working together to arrange the pieces and press them into place. There was a lot of helping each other. While some participants chose to sew their squares, many are glued. As a final touch, the artists signed their names and were invited to add a phrase or title they associate with their quilt square and with their ideas of home.

The quilt will be displayed for public viewing at the Nannie J. Lee Recreation Center (1108 Jefferson St.) starting June 12.

See photos of the project and poems written by the participants below.

Nephelie Andonyadis contributed this article

Collaborative poems and stories written by the Adult Day Services Center participants:

FIVE SENSES OF HOME

When I think of home, I think of
My children
My grandchildren
My sister
Son, daughter
Family
A warm unit with family
Where I am. Where I live.
I have two homes.
I have a chance to think of my daughter, my son, my friends.
Home feels like
Way back when.
I think of my family. My son.
It feels safe.
It feels warm.
I don’t think of home. I’m not into that right now.
I think of my daughter come home from the air force.
Pictures of family
Family portraits

Home sounds like
Music
Records on a record player
Telling stories
Home sounds like
Coffee percolating in the kitchen
And eggs frying!
And bacon
We can smell that too.
I can smell it and taste it!
Home sounds like
Laughing
Birds chirping
Dogs barking
Baby crying

Where I live, in front of the river.
I grew up on a street with a garden in the front and in the back.

Affection and love.

The Old Stove 
by Tammy, Frances and Izora
Alexandria Adult Day Services Center, January 22, 2024

My mother used to play Dominoes!
The paint is coming off the walls.

I see an old stove.
We don’t have those now but back then, they were used to cook food, and give heat.
My uncle had one.

Sitting on chairs. One of them is broke.
There’s a kerosene lamp, for light.
There’s another one on the table.
Back then, they had no electricity.
No TV.

There’s a kettle on the stove.
And a bucket.

Three women and a little boy.
Their heads are covered. I think they’re from a religion.
And one of them is smoking.
She’s sewing. Making a quilt.

The clock.
The bucket with a spoon coming out.
It feels warm, sitting and playing a game.

It would be quiet.
Sound of dominoes clacking, fire crackling, wind blowing.
It’s dark outside.

It’s a board house.
With a tin roof.
The sound of the rain on the tin roof.
The big belly stove.
The coals in the stove.
I remember those days.

Tan, tan, tan, tan….a piece of the roof would flop up.
The sound of the rain on the tin roof put you to sleep.

The Ministry on the Mountain: A quiet working family

A family.
They are playing dominoes.
A grandmother making a quilt.
The young man watching, figuring out who’s going to win!
A stove, the kind that burns wood,
and a lamp, a kerosene lamp,
and a clock,
a cast iron tea pot.
It looks like a mop bucket on the floor.
Cast iron oven that’s been around for a long time.
What’s this over the door?
The wall is crumbling.

I see some scissors, extra material on the floor.
The patch blanket - back in the day.
There are so many things to look at here, and here and here and here…
Noticing the red parts of the painting, moving around.
Important people that you saw.

It’s dark outside moon, clouds.
It looks like a cloud in the middle part.
It’s 8 o’clock in the evening.
I like that stove. The wooden stove gives the most heat.
Yes!

The warmth of family.
They all get along. Quality family time.
They all seem pleasant and content.
It’s a good feeling - no yelling or arguing.
There’s only one boy, he’s younger.
He’s very present - observant.
She’s got a head rag on, like me.
Her shawl!
Long white gown.

There’s a spot where the wall is coming apart.
A crack.
They’re not in a position to put plaster back on that crack.
They have warm clothing.
She’s making a patch blanket.
I’m noticing a vase on the table, with a flower.
We hear the sound of concentration - intense.
This lady talking – she’s making a move.
Everyone all around.
The wood floor makes a sound – Crack!
The father’s chair is broke.
A broken slat of wood.

The smell of the kerosene.
Stew on the stove – getting ready for winter.
I agree about the winter.
January and February. It’s stormy.
In the mountains, in a cabin.

There’s a polka dot blouse!
We’ll call her Lucy.
The boy is Jim.
The father is James.
We have colors that match.
That pot - there ain’t much in it!
We need a bigger pot.

A patch blanket.
So intricate!