On Mother's Day, May 1987, The Crystal Quilt was performed by 430 women, all over the age of 65. It was the culmination of the 212 year Whisper Minnesota Project by performance artist Suzanne Lacy--an extensive organizing network with over 500 volunteers who developed a media campaign, series of community events, and educational programs on the theme of aging. The Crystal Quilt performance involved 20 artists from across the country who contributed their expertise in stage design, sound, documentation, and direction. The two hour performance took place in the center of the IDS Crystal Court, designed by Phillip Johnson, and was live broadcast by the PBS television affiliate in Minneapolis.
Dressed completely in black, the performers entered the "stage" – an 82 foot square rug designed by Miriam Schapiro, that served as the base of the quilt pattern. Seated at card tables, they unfolded tablecloths of red and yellow that completed the quilt effect when seen from above. The older women talked to each other while the audience listened to pre-recorded soundtrack of similar conversations. The following quotations are drawn from this soundtrack by composer Susan Stone and a videotape by Linda Brooks:


Suzanne Lacy´s Crystal Quilt
Older women should make their voices heard in terms of the arms race, because they are the ones who have brought these families into the world and are so deeply concerned about their children and grandchildren. I'm not saying that younger women are not; they are concerned as well. But I think we should shout out our feelings about this everywhere.
As you approach your exits, when you get to be 70 or 75, I think your response to stimuli is intensified. I feel as though I am living a richer life, because I am experiencing so much more. That sunset, you know, let's have it last a little longer!
I feel like I need to live about two years more, to bring in my crops before the frost, I call it. My unfinished work...I have three books to finish. But that is a patriarchal statement; women don't 'finish' things. — Meridel Le Seuer
Suzanne Lacy´s Crystal Quilt
You get older in other people's eyes; you don't see yourself as old. You look out the window and not the mirror anymore. I think it's true that we have a vocabulary that describes our beautiful young women, but we don't have as good a vocabulary to describe what is beautiful about older citizens.
Suzanne Lacy´s Crystal Quilt
In many communities we are the ones who do the volunteer work now. Younger people are all employed. I deliver meals on wheels. Practically everybody who delivers meals on wheels is over 65. Since most of the people over 65 are women, most of the people delivering meals on wheels are women. More and more we are doing the volunteer work of the society.
Suzanne Lacy´s Crystal Quilt
I think a lot of senility comes from the fact that nobody asks you anything. Nobody includes you in the social ceremonies. Nobody asks you to speak. Pretty soon you lose your memory. I suffer a lot from people not listening to me. It's like not having a great aged tree to sit under, to protect you or to look at or to feel. I think its a great cultural loss. — Meridel Le Seuer
Suzanne Lacy´s Crystal Quilt
The only terror of getting old for me is economic. I was put in the hospital a year ago and it wiped me out. Everything I had saved I used to call it having enough to die on all gone. Now I'm afraid. I'm not going to be dependent upon my children. What's going to happen to me? I want to go directly from my home to the undertaker. I wouldn't want to go into a nursing home. — Etta Furlow
As I come to realize that death is going to be a part of my life in the next few years, I become more and more aware of what I have given and not given to my children. And I try to make my contribution to their lives more colorful, more exacting in standards, but also more enjoyable. So that if they have to go through that period of indignity with me, they will have the remembrance of a richer, better relationship.