Commun ty Matters Salina Presbyterian Manor
October 2015
A song in my heart
Art is Ageless®
When I was about 10, I was told by my music teacher that, during our concert, I shouldn’t sing but just move my lips. I can’t begin to tell you what that did to my selfconfidence. I had always wanted to play the piano or take dance lessons but obviously there was no point in doing that.
When Mary Ann Tanking used to visit her mother in Colorado, she would accompany her to quilt guild meetings on Mondays. The group would spend the morning hand-stitching, and then Mary Ann’s mother would send her to get lunch for everyone. Mary Ann suspected something was going on while she was away.
By Mary Bridges, Salina Presbyterian Manor chaplain
Later that year, it was discovered that I had lost 50 percent of my hearing due to enlarged and chronically infected adenoids. Hmm. Maybe I couldn’t sing because I couldn’t hear. They removed my adenoids, and my hearing was eventually restored. My husband, my daughter and granddaughters are music people. When a song comes on, one or all of them can name the artist or name that song. I don’t have a clue about music or songs or who sings what. It just never seemed important to me. Growing up, we did have a record player in our home, and I can remember listing to “The Tennessee Waltz” and “Sixteen Tons” by Tennessee Ernie Ford, and of course every Saturday night we watched the Lawrence Welk Show. When I became a teenager, I had all the latest records of the Everly Brothers, and “Love Me Tender” by CHAPLAIN, continued on page 2
Local artists featured in 2016 calendar
“Green Tea Jelly Roll Surprise With
“She would remove the stitches I Leftovers” by Mary Ann Tanking. put in in the morning,” Mary Ann said. “I didn’t find out until her funeral, when one of her friends told me.” Mary Ann’s quilting skills have come a long way since then. Her quilt, “Green Tea Jelly Roll Surprise With Leftovers,” is one of four winning pieces from Salina artists in this year’s system-wide Art is Ageless® competition. Winners were chosen from the top local entries at all 18 Presbyterian Manors of Mid-America communities. Mary Ann’s piece will be featured in the 2016 Art is Ageless calendar, along with the works of more than 50 artists age 65 and older throughout Kansas and Missouri. In quilting, a “jelly roll” is a bundle of quilt fabric pre-cut into 40 strips, sized 2 1/2 by 44 inches. Mary Ann said she was looking for a challenge. “I had looked at several quilt patterns, and I was bored with them, so I thought, I’ll figure out how to do this,” she said. The result is a geometric pattern of blues, greens and golds, with winecolored accents from her scrap pile—those are the “leftovers.” From 1976 to 1995, Mary Ann taught art at Southeast of Saline High School, then at Kansas Wesleyan University for 10 more years. More recently, she directed the art program at Sunflower Adult Day Services for adults with dementia. Mary Ann said she didn’t start quilting in earnest until she retired in 2005. Her mother died the same year, and Mary Ann completed a few quilts that her mother had started. ART, continued on page 2