ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, October 12, 1996 TAG: 9610140050
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: From Knight-Ridder/Tribune and The San Francisco Chronicle
GROWN TO NEARLY 40,000 hand-made panels in about 10 years of sad sewing, the 40-ton quilt stitched in memory of AIDS victims is expected to attract three-quarters of a million people to mourn and reflect.
Quilting is a way of passing the dark hours, keeping the loneliness at bay. Generations of women have known this.
Down in New Orleans, Sandra Castanell knew it, too, quilting away the nights with her cousin and her sister. In spite of hard days at work and family troubles, they would get together evenings, talking and laughing as they quilted.
When they did, it always seemed as if Castanell's dead son, Todd Thomas, would join them. He loved to hear them laughing, and besides, they were quilting for him.
The panel they worked on is part of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, which was unfurled Friday in Washington by more than 1,000 volunteers. The quilt covered the National Mall from the foot of Capitol Hill all the way to the Washington Monument.
The quilt started with a single painted bed sheet back in 1987. Now, on its fifth visit to Washington, the names and images of the dead shimmer for almost a mile.
Nearly 40,000 hand-made panels, each containing a personal tribute to at least one person killed by the disease, will surround 23 miles of walkway.
On display until Sunday, the quilt is expected to draw 750,000 visitors. The display will be accompanied by forums, a candlelight march and the reading of more than 70,000 names - some of the 300,000 who have already died of AIDS in this country.
Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper Gore, were among the first of nearly 2,000 volunteers who will read the names. Others who agreed to read names included poet Maya Angelou, actress Elizabeth Taylor and folk singer Arlo Guthrie.
Organizers said this may be the last time the exhibit, the size of 24 football fields, is displayed in its entirety.
``What it has done always in the past, and will continue to, is put a face on this epidemic. It makes this a epidemic human,'' said Anthony Turney, executive director of the Names Project, the San Francisco-based foundation that sponsors the quilt.
Quilt organizers said they brought the full quilt to Washington to remind Congress that the disease still has no cure, although new but expensive drugs for the first time give hope of better controlling it.
Between 650,000 and 900,000 Americans are living with AIDS in the United States, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control. The agency cites AIDS as the leading cause of death among U.S. men aged 25 to 44 and the third-leading killer among women the same age.
Some of the names on the quilts are familiar, such as tennis star Arthur Ashe, movie star Rock Hudson, dancer Rudolf Nureyev, pianist Liberace, MTV star and activist Pedro Zamora and San Francisco Chronicle reporter and author Randy Shilts, who wrote about the disease. Most are not.
Most of the 6-by-3-foot panels were sewn by friends and relatives. They contain photographs, poetry, paintings, pearls, records, stuffed animals, car keys, wedding rings and other personal remembrances. It took 10 boxcars to carry the 40 tons of fabric on the train from San Francisco, where the panels are stored.
Friendly crowds greeted President and Hillary Rodham Clinton at the display Friday afternoon. The Clintons strolled, sometimes hand in hand on their 21st anniversary, through sections of the quilt.
``This means a lot to us,'' someone shouted. ``We love you,'' cried another. Another volunteer thanked Clinton for being the first president to visit the quilt.
The Reagan White House ignored the 2,000-panel display when the quilt was first brought to Washington in 1987, as well as when it grew to 8,000 panels in 1988. The Bush White House paid it little attention as it expanded to 11,000 panels in 1989 and to 20,000 in 1992.
The idea for the AIDS quilt originated in San Francisco in 1985, after a march marking the city's 1,000th AIDS death. During a candlelight vigil, the names of the victims were written on placards and taped to the side of a building.
Gay rights advocate Cleve Jones thought this makeshift paper memorial resembled a patchwork quilt, and he soon established the Names Project to put together an actual quilt.
There are now 41 Names Project chapters around the country. More than 100 new panels are mailed to the organization's headquarters each week.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. 1. As seen from the Washington Monument, the AIDSby CNBMemorial Quilt reaches to Capitol Hill after it was laid out Friday
for a weekend of remembrance. 2. Rabbi Stephen Roberts of New York
comforts Marion Warmkessel, of Reading, Pa., by a panel of the quilt
memorializing her uncle, Ed Noll. color.