Slater Barron’s mother and father were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease within several years of one another. Feeling helpless, the self-described visualist, artist, lecturer and educator channeled heartache into inspiration by immersing herself into her work.

The result, an exhibit titled “Remembering the Forgetting,” is on display at the USC Health Sciences campus’ Institute for Genetic Medicine through Oct. 26.

Cosponsored by the institute, the USC Davis School of Gerontology and the League of Women Voters of Los Angeles, the artwork features seven portraits of Barron’s mother along with handmade books containing poems and collages inspired by other patients of the care facility in which Barron’s parents lived.

The Mother Series images are composed of dryer lint, which according to Barron, is symbolic of the mental and physical disintegration caused by Alzheimer’s disease. The depictions, one for each year, span from 1983, when Barron’s mother was first institutionalized, until her death in 1990.

“I selected from (photographs) I took yearly and chose which were most typical of that year,” Barron said.

The earliest portrait depicts Barron’s mother in poor health, unable to care for herself before entering the care facility. In the next representation, she appears alert and rejuvenated, a testament to the “love and care provided by the home,” wrote Barron on her Web site.

Subsequent images show her mother’s severe deterioration, first in a wheelchair and finally bedridden. In the last two renderings, Barron includes a decimated frog she described as a symbol of the angel of death watching over her mother.

“My time in the studio helped me deal with the panic,” she said. “I remembered all the good memories, the love my parents had for each other and my family.”

While visiting her parents at the sanitarium, Barron met other patients whose memories had been wiped away by the disease. For them, she wrote poetry, fictionalizing their past lives into a collection of handmade books.

Following is an excerpt from “Who Is He?” one of the poems on display at the exhibit.

The man stands still in the sun
not feeling its heat,
stands not knowing where,
stares, but does not see reality,
sees what used to be
in an almost forgotten time.
He cries without knowing why.
The sadness comes from the
not knowing.

The poems are overlaid on collaged backgrounds of imaginary photographic histories assembled from old photographs of Barron’s family, neighbors and friends.

“I invented what I would have surmised about their background,” she explained.

Each book is enclosed in a separate folder and embossed with the image of the chain link fence that enclosed the care facility.

“What you feel is a kind of loss of presence,” said Doris Nelson, a member of the League of Women Voters, who visited the gallery. For Nelson, the exhibit evoked a sentiment she believed is similar to the experience of an Alzheimer’s patient.

Barron also recently released a book, Remembering the Forgetting, which includes the story of her parents, the poems and pictures from the exhibit, as well as other works created during that time.

“It’s been my experience, when I show this work, that people feel as if they are not alone in their grief,” Barron said. “I hope people will read my book, see the exhibit and realize that there are creative ways to deal with their sorrow.”

The book is available on Barron’s Web site at http://www.slaterbarron.com