9/11 REMEMBERED

Art From the Heart – An American Tapestry

A little after 9:00 a.m. on September 11, 2001, I was sitting at my desk (in Miami Beach) paying bills with the television tuned to a news channel in the background. Half listening, I suddenly stopped what I was doing when a breaking news alert reported that a plane had struck one of the World Trade Center towers. At that moment, no one knew whether it was an accident or something far more sinister.

I immediately called my mother. She and two of my aunts lived in lower Manhattan in apartments with direct views of the Twin Towers. While we were on the phone, the second plane hit.

My mother’s voice changed instantly from concern to panic. Convinced that her building might be next, she became hysterical. Before hanging up, she told me she was letting neighbors into her apartment so they could witness for themselves what I was seeing on television.

That phone call has never left me. Every year, as the anniversary approaches, I remember the fear in her voice and the helplessness I felt hundreds of miles away.

Like so many Americans, Stewart and I struggled to process the horror of that day. Rather than remain consumed by grief and anger, we decided to create a project that would give people an opportunity to tell their own stories of how 9/11 had changed their lives.

We traveled to New York and conducted “Telling Stories Through Visuals” workshops with people whose lives had been forever altered by the attacks. We worked with electricians and construction workers who had been at the World Trade Center when the planes struck and who had lost friends and coworkers. We listened to teenagers who attended school near Ground Zero, close enough to hear explosions and witness terrified crowds running through the streets. We also met community residents who watched from their windows as smoke, debris, and ash drifted through their neighborhoods.

The emotional toll was unmistakable. Months later, grief still hung over the city.

Back in Miami, we continued the project with students from both a Hebrew Academy and a mosque school, determined to create a dialogue that crossed cultural and religious boundaries. We received hard copies of stories with accompanying artwork from people living in the midwest.

Our goal was ambitious: to unveil the completed work on the first anniversary of the attacks, September 11, 2002. We succeeded.

The result was a series of tapestry panels combining artwork and personal narratives. Both colorful and somber, the exhibition captured stories of loss, resilience, fear, and hope. On the anniversary of 9/11, the panels were displayed in the windows of the Donnell Branch of the New York Public Library, directly across from the Museum of Modern Art, where thousands of pedestrians could view them. Chanel One New York featured the project in a televised interview.

Not long after, my mother showed signs of dementia. I’ve often wondered whether the events she witnessed that day contributed to her decline. Of course, there is no way to know with certainty.

What I do know is that September 11 changed lives far beyond the boundaries of Ground Zero. It became part of the personal history of millions of people. Our tapestry project was one small attempt to help people transform grief into remembrance and memory into understanding.

Twenty-five years later, we are still fighting the war on terrorism.

Art from the Heart – An American Tapestry is a Center for Folk and Community Art “Telling Stories Through Visuals” writing and art-making project led by artists Dena Stewart and Stewart Stewart