Because of the events of September 11, 2001, individuals around the world were grief stricken, scared, or confused. Many were affected directly by these events, and others only witnessed the horific images on the news. Whatever the case, as graphic designers, we should not feel helpless.
We each have a special gift—the gift of creativity. Each day we visually try to communicate ideas at work and at home.
In September of 2011, several members, as a way of dealing with this tragic situation, began drawing in their sketchbooks as a way of “release.” Others picked up their cameras, or typed out poetry on their computers.
Whatever their form of release, UCDA provided a forum—Help the Healing—to share their creations. Together, we gave sympathy and understanding to this tragic event, and helped each other heal.
On the anniversary of September 11, we share a sampling of the creations that were collected.
Writings from Bruce Freeman
How dare they, those nameless cowards and their minions, attack the one home to all for whom all receive, in large measure, hope for peace, prosperity, and freedom. How dare they blaspheme the name of God by saying they perform such acts in God’s name or dare to say they martyr themselves with God's blessing and promise of eternal bliss by bringing terror to the lives of innocents.
These cowards end their lives in one final selfish act to supposedly achieve ultimate glory for themselves while destroying innocent lives—so they themselves will be permitted eternal peace? I think not.
And now our jaws should be set with determination for the endeavor ahead to eliminate the remaining selfish and deluded zealots before they can commit more such acts and further blaspheme God, harm more innocents, and desecrate humanity with their violence. We all have our selfLESS tasks to perform toward this end, and no task is small or insignificant. Guard against lumping all people of color or all philosophies in the same category with these sick terrorists, however. We stand for freedom and the right to be peacefully different from the next fellow. The enemy is unseen and does not display their anti-humanity in an overt fashion from a specific physical location.
May you be protected as you go about your tasks, and I hope you wish me the same as I go about mine.
Photograph from Jean Bevier
Writings from Sam Robinson
Written on Thursday, September 13, 2001
A friend who works in Manhattan told me how he made his way home on Tuesday night, sharing the ferry with ashen, bloody refugees from Ground Zero, all silent, silently grieving, silently returning home in the twilight, hushed and lapped in lead.
What is it about us that sends us down to the river to pray for salvation in times of trouble? We hardly know.
Undoubtedly it is the same urge that sends us to our email applications, to our telephones, to tell the people we love that we love them still. We do this as the planes descend, as the buildings burn, as we make our way home, as we pick up the pieces.
I was thinking this morning, on my way to work, with my little Stars and Stripes waving from the back window, that I had never before felt a driving need to literally “show the flag.” And I am comforted in the early morning darkness to find that I'm not unique in this. You can see American flags unfurling across the whole country, some even blooming on barren and blasted ground: draped over the ruined roof of the Pentagon, braving the choking clouds of dust at Ground Zero, standing on a lonely hill in Pennsylvania.
With my little flag, I feel a part of this groundswell of pride and solidarity and compassion, a movement not shaped by words or leadership but lifted on the wings of faith. In the coming days we will have need of our faith, as we have need of it now. Faith in ourselves, in one another, in our nation, in God.
We will prevail in this. We will defeat this evil by refusing to turn into anything less than we are: generous, brave, enterprising, tolerant and resolute.
Tomorrow, let’s observe our national day of prayer and reflection by remembering that we are not, after all, rooted in helpless horror but in something more compelling: our steadfast devotion to freedom for all Americans... and for all who would be free.
Drawings and images from Leslee Paquette
Images from Al Wasco
I realize there may be copyright issues here [with the original images]. I’ve thought about this a lot, and for myself I believe that these images are—and should remain—part of our collective memory of the events. I'm not going to permit fear of legal issues stop me from reacting as a visual artist.
Images from Susan Blettel
Thank you for this opportunity. Although nothing can compare to the grief and loss of those in New York, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania, it has brought some comfort to me to confront this horrific tragedy through the filter most familiar—visual communication. I have fond memories of Manhattan and found comfort in looking through my photos of New York.
Account of experience from Ret Talbot
Submitted by Will Linthicum. Ret Talbot is publications manager at Oldfields School near Baltimore. Trained in emergency medical treatment and search/rescue, he spent several days at ground zero.
Here is his touching account of the experience.
17 September 2001
© 2001 Ret Talbot
I talked to my friend on Monday, the day Wall Street resumed business after the attack on the Twin Towers. He's a banker, and, perhaps out of obligation to his profession, he is not one who is easily shows his emotions. He is not easily rattled. He's usually the first with a slightly off-color joke or a flippant comment aimed at taking the edge of a situation. But on Monday, the tone in his voice was unmistakable. There was no joke, no dismissive intonation.
You see, we both knew there was no way to take the edge off of this situation. We'd both been there-Alex at 8:47 when the first airliner struck the World Trade Center and me 36 hours later as the corpse of a New York City fireman was pulled from the rubble. We'd both witnessed things that we knew would change us forever. We knew everything would be different now-not necessarily in any grand, sweeping way, but in a way that rose within us to somewhere just beneath the point of comprehension. It was something... is something.... that neither of us can wrap our minds around, neither of us can explain, neither of us can process. And so on Monday, on the telephone, we shared silence.
And then, finally-his voiced cracking-Alex said, "You know, there was never this much light on Wall Street before."
"Never this much light on Wall Street before." At first I didn't understand what he meant, but then it hit me. Those two towers rearing up into the screaming blue had turned lower Manhattan's canyons into even deeper and darker recesses. Now, with the Towers gone, light spilled freely into the city streets like the rush of flood water down a brittle-dry arroyo. As an English teacher, and one who is prone to reading too much into everything, my metaphor meter went into overdrive. "Never this much light on Wall Street," I repeated to myself. And the paradox was clearthat somehow amidst this incomprehensible tragedy, there was immeasurable brilliance, there was light.
And I thought back to how it was for me, stepping off a bus at ground zero. Ten o'clock at night. The devastation exposed in the clinical glare white of utility lights powered by the whir and chug of generators pulsing into the night air. It was a light that blinded, yet hid nothing. I thought back to that first ambulance ride I'd ever taken. The stitches were barely pulled snug on the EMT patch I wore on my sleeve. I remembered the advise my partner-a veteran paramedic-gave me, "Just make sure you focusotherwise the scene will overwhelm you. Find something to do, focus on a task, don't let the scene get into your head."
Yet on Wednesday night at Ground Zero I stood therecompletely overwhelmed. Completely unfocussed. The lights seemed to burn brighter, etching the horror deeper and deeper into my brain. My stomach hurt like I'd been kickeda-gut clenching pain. And it wasn't only the visuals-the things I saw. It was the smells and the sounds. The acrid air. The glass beneath my feet. Someone was talking. We were moving toward a makeshift field hospital.
"No, there have been no survivors yet tonight," somebody said. And then a passing fireman grabbed my arm, "Hey, Doc," he said. "put that respirator on, will ya?"
I looked into his face, blackened and drained of life. I looked at his immense hand on my shoulder. The width of his shoulders was that of two men. "Thanks," I said pulling the mask in place. But he was already gone, and once again the scene crowded in on my senses. Off to my left a bucket brigade of volunteers was blazing a path through the immense pile of twisted debris one brick at a time. To my right, a crane was working, carefully lifting a large piece of concrete into the back of a waiting truck. There were national guardsmen in fatigues, somebody handing out bottled water.
While I was still taking it all in, a man in a white shirt and a red helmet collapsed to the ground near me. His friend knelt anxiously by his side. Suddenly the stethoscope around my neck reminded me of my purpose. It gave meaning to my being here. I'd come to help, and all at once there was something for me to do, somebody I could help, some way that I could make a difference. I fell into the routine of vitals and patient history, assessment and treatment. Mike had been working for thirty hours without sleep, his friend told me. He was dehydrated, exhausted and was bleeding from a nasty cut on his leg. "Rebarb," his buddy explained. "It happened yesterday." Mike's heart was racing, his respirations came fast. His eyes were red and tearing. A deep cough echoed from his chest. He told me he'd lost his brother. I flagged down an ambulance for him, and he disappeared like a ghost into the night.
I walked around in a daze for a time after my interaction with Mike. I saw a fireman in an orange body bag come from the wreckage. I saw an ambulance in the distance, its lights slashing into the night, and I walked toward it instinctually. It wasn't until I was close enough to touch it that I realized it was covered in ash, all its windows blown out-surreally agape. I reached in and turned off the lights.
I made my way to the field hospital where a volunteer was having his eyes flushed, another man was connected to an IV, a search and rescue dog whimpered-his eyes burning from the gasses, his nose choked with dust. An EMT bandaged a bleeding paw. I stood there for a time with the other EMS volunteers-arms folded, looking on, waiting for the victims of this tragedy to be found. Waiting for something to do. And finally I couldn't take it any more. The disorganization was immense, and no one noticed as I pushed my stethoscope into pocket, exchanged my surgical gloves for work gloves and joined the line of men on the bucket brigade stringing into the smoldering heap like an impossibly large worm snaking into the heart of a very great darkness.
The world closed in on the man in front of me and the man behind me. On the white plastic bucket coming down the line. On those things in my own field of visionon those things I found. The heavier the buckets the better, I thought-less opportunity to think about anything besides the burn in your muscles and the pumping of your own heart. The first human remains I saw were nothing like a human at all. Perhaps a shattered piece of concrete or
maybe a piece of ductwork or somebody's handbag, but not a person. And then there were other pieces and we picked them up, each, one at a time, like we were cleaning up our room or tidying up the yard. Body parts went into green bags, full corpses into orangethere was a system, it was a job, and each of us did it as best we were able.
We kept our sights on that person we would rescue-the living human we would pull from the wreckage. But that never happened. There were no dramatic rescues. No spirits raised, no celebration of the resilience of life in the face of adversity. This was the worst of humanity, and as I rode out of that war zone on top of a fire engine at sunrise, I was disheartened, and I wondered why I had come at all.
But then at the 14th street NYPD roadblock everything changed. The sun was up nowbrilliant light spilling across the Hudson River. And there, at 7 AM, were New Yorkerseveryday people, waving flags and cheering at every emergency vehicle that went by. A fireman who sat beside me started to cry. And it was then that I realized that these times-these apparently catastrophic events, these tragedies-reveal not only the worst of humanity but also its best. Those people on the streets of New York were as much the heroes as the emergency workers at ground zero. And, in a rush of emotion, I suddenly understood what Walt Whitman meant when he wrote, I understand the large hearts of heroes.
It was like Alex had said on the phone, except it occurred to me that it wasn't just Wall Street. It occurred to me that there has never been this much light in New York City.
Image from Kari W. McCormick
This original art by Kari W. McCormick was published in black and white in the October 1, 2001 issue of Perspectives, the Palm Beach Community College monthly newsletter.