“Journey Through Dementia” Depicts the Terror of Living with a Failing Mind

Canadian advertising designer turned painter Faye Hall is all too familiar with the ravages of dementia. She watched her mom, Helen Goertzen, battle the disease for years, all the while denying that there was anything wrong. Goertzen would make up elaborate stories to explain away her forgetfulness and odd behavior. And when her daughter would point out that the stories made little sense, Helen became increasingly upset.

“Journey Through Dementia by Faye Hall
Credit: fayehall.com

As her dementia worsened, Helen began misplacing things around the house. Food would “disappear” and her possessions were constantly being rearranged. Confused, Goertzen became convinced that thieves were invading her home. And so she began to leave notes for them demanding that they go away. “Get a job,” said one note,  “I can’t afford to feed you.”

When Helen Goertzen died in 2012, her daughter found the notes she had written scattered around her home. Some were warnings left for the “intruders.” Some were reminders to herself. Taken together, they were a sad chronicle of the slow unraveling of Helen’s life and a testament to the fear that became her constant companion as time — and her disease –wore on.

Finding the notes was a catalyst for Hall, who decided to incorporate them into a portrait of Helen she later titled “Journey Through Dementia.” Over four hours, she painstakingly added the content of the notes to a painting that she made from a photograph taken of her mother shortly before she died. It was a photo in which she looked especially fearful, Hall says.

A portrait of Helen painted shortly before her death
Credit: fayehall.com

And, indeed, the woman who looks out at us from the cover of Hall’s book, “ART begets ART” looks haunted and frightened, the deep wrinkles in her face melting away into scrawled warnings to the trespassers whom she believed were invading her home. “Stupid jerk,” one says. Another lists the items the thief has stolen, “clocks, vacuums, storage jars…”  Still another begins,” If I was myself…”

Although Helen believed the intruders were real, it’s almost as if she wrote the notes to the illness that stole her mind.

After finishing the portrait, Hall took a photo of it and posted it to her Facebook page. Since then, she says, many people have contacted her and said they see the faces of their own loved ones echoed there. Their support has helped Hall move through her feelings about her mother’s long illness and eventual death. And, she believes, it has helped those who see her work too.

“People need to know that they are not the only ones experiencing this and that…they shouldn’t feel guilty about having feelings about it either,” she said.