Nursing & Caring
Nursing & Caring is a collection of memoir art quilts designed and created by Terri Pauser Wolf, RN, MS about her 20-year career in nursing. The series illustrates experiences from nursing school student to experienced nurse and gives viewers a peek into nursing and oncology care. Quilt number one was created in 1997 when Terri started nursing school. The eight additional artworks were from June to December 2022. Each quilt takes about 20 hours to complete.
The series consists of nine art quilts and is can be loaned for an exhibition at health institutions including medical facilities, headquarter offices, educational institutions and conferences (see Exhibition info below).
Terri also offers workshops with the memoir art pieces and discusses art making for self care and storytelling for health care professionals. Use the contact for below for inquiries.
House of
Caring Spirits
House of the Caring Spirits represents nursing students excited for the opportunity to care for patients. The background features torn fabric strips woven to show the caring encounter I had with Elmer, an 87-year-old client with Alzheimer’s disease, who I met weekly at an adult day care center. This nursing school clinical focused on coming to know our patients without collecting medical data. My client kept asking about when he would go home so I used house imagery in the quilt. The ten small houses represent the 10 caritas factors identified by Dr. Jean Watson, a nurse scientist and researcher and expert on caring. The color scheme of purple and yellow is complementary on the color wheel and means the colors complete each other just like an authentic caring relationship is completion for both the nurse and patient. This is the first art piece in the Nursing and Caring series and was completed in 1997, my first semester in nursing school. This artwork’s design became the launching point for the series of nursing memoir quilts made in 2022.
Code Blue
Code Blue expresses the adrenaline rush of responding to the room of a patient who has stopped breathing or heart is not beating. Code Blue is announced over the loudspeaker so the code team can rush to the bedside. The artwork represents the franticness of the emergency with the caring spirits moving quickly, and the bubbles a hint to the oxygen the patient needs. The lungs are made to look like an x-ray using a sun print fabric called a cyanotype.
Red Shoes
Red Shoes symbolizes an experience I had with a critically ill three-year-old boy during a nursing clinical in a pediatric intensive care unit. His mother placed a new pair of red shoes on a shelf over his bed, and to me, the shoes were a sign of what we were doing—getting this boy better so he could wear those shoes. This important story in my nursing career is chronicled here [link].
In Memory
In Memory reminds us that despite all efforts some patients do not survive their cancer diagnosis and treatment. This textile artwork is created in memory of the patients who died and the family and friends who grieve them. This piece started with the central panel that was painted using stencils. A story of patients who died began to emerge from the cloth. The broken circle image represents the devastation of loss. Strips of word fabrics framed the painting and serendipitously, the word HEAVEN showed up in this random strip of fabric that had been in my scrap pile and now borders the central image.