For years Gail Marirea lived for quilting.

Once she was in her “bubble”, she would stitch for eight hours straight.

Then in late 2015 macular degeneration struck; the eye disease is common in older people.

“I have had it for several years, but last winter it suddenly made a move,” said the 76-year-old. “In December, I couldn’t see out of my right eye.

“There was a bleed. It was very scary and I did think I might not be able to quilt again. I couldn’t drive for a few months.”

Regular injections helped to slowly improve her vision.

“By the middle of January I could see well enough to attempt to quilt, but nothing was straight,” she said.

“I would ask my husband, Howard, to look at the quilt and see if anything looked strange. He was my eyes for quite a while.”

Today her vision is still slightly “wonky”, but she can drive again. Her quilting time, however, is limited.

“It can be very intense and I get tired and have to take a break,” she said.

She took up the hobby in 1998, at 58. She wasn’t surprised that it came to her “very naturally” as she’s always been artistically inclined.

As a child in Rosalind, a 40-family hamlet in Alberta, Canada, she showed a flair for music, dance and painting.

Her mother made leather handbags and her father played in a band.

“Starting when I was seven, my parents would take me to the dancehall and put me to sleep in the cloak room,” said Mrs Marirea.

“They’d wake me up at midnight when everyone broke for supper. People would form a big circle around the hall and I would perform my dances, mostly tap; then they’d pass around the hat.

“I like to tell my son I’ve been earning my own money since I was seven.”

At 9, her father taught her to play the saxophone and recruited her into his band.

“It was a really good little band,” she said. “There are umpteen little towns in Alberta all connected by the railway, so we circled around Rosalind.

“I was a little strange in town because I was so different from all the other children.

“They were farm children and I’d been on the stage since I was little, tap dancing.”

When she was 12, her parents gave her a set of oil paints for Christmas.

“All I had to paint on was Christmas wrapping paper,” she said.

“I remember painting a whole bunch of Christmas trees.

“When I was 16 we moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba and the next year I sold my first painting.”

But at that time her prime concern wasn’t art, it was getting out of town.

“I wanted to travel,” she said. “And Winnipeg was a little too cold.”

At 19, she took a secretarial job in the Bahamas, and then moved to Bermuda. A friend introduced her to Howard Marirea who had also worked in the Bahamas for a short time.

“We never knew each other in the Bahamas,” said Mrs Marirea, “but we had that in common. We hit it off.”

They married in 1968.

“I painted until I was pregnant with my son, Robin,” she said.

“I used to sell some of my paintings in Wells Gallery in the Washington Lane.

“Then I was working full-time and didn’t have time for art. I worked as a secretary, and then I was headteacher of the Skinner Secretarial School. I have had some really good jobs in my time.”

Her quilts go on show in the Rick Faries Gallery at Masterworks on Thursday; her first exhibit in eight years.

Some of them were inspired by Winslow Homer paintings; others by photographs she has taken around the island.

They’re not cheap. She’s sold some for more than $2,000.

“I think my next project will be a coffee-table book of my quilts,” she said. “I always liked writing.”

Her advice to other artists: “If you find you can do something well, stay with it and try to do it better. Don’t spread yourself too thin.”

•Lifestyle profiles senior citizens in the community every Tuesday. To suggest an outstanding senior contact Jessie Moniz Hardy: 278-0150 or jmhardy@royalgazette.com. Have on hand the senior’s full name, contact details and the reason you are suggesting them