I originally posted this piece at my blog for Stitches Magazine on Sept. 9th, 2011. It is still the best explanation of my relationship with the tragedy of 9-11, and what it meant for me and my career. If you’d like to read the post in it’s entirety and to learn about how the tragedy greatly influenced my early career, it is linked below.

In Memory of Heroes

In short, 9/11 occurred just at the time that I was coming into my own as an embroidery digitizer, and due to a set of extraordinary circumstances, I ended up as one of the chief people licensed to create FDNY and NYPD apparel in the aftermath, meaning that my livelihood was largely based on the nations desire for solidarity with those people working at ground zero, something I still have some reservations about to this day. I closed the original post with the following two paragraphs, and I feel that they still stand.

“It took a long while for me to come to grips with the fact that the work I loved was subsidized by that need – that my very means of subsistence came in some way from this horrible tragedy – but seeing the many pictures that would make their way back to us of proud people wearing those garments, the thank you notes from people who had done so much, and who rightfully should have been the receivers of such gratitude, I realized how important it was in the aftermath of this tragedy to identify oneself with these heroic souls, and with our country. The other products we created at the time were patriotic designs, and I myself on the first day after the tragedy stitched on my then ever-present work vest an image of an American eagle standing on a union shield. Just as my instinct was to support the country I loved through wearing that symbol, we all wanted to give our support somehow, albeit sometimes in spirit only, to those who so bravely and selflessly threw themselves into danger for the good of their fellow men and women.

 

I’ve always contended that embroidery is important, and that it allows us to wear our affiliations, our beliefs and even our hopes, literally on our sleeves. If any wonder how I came to believe so firmly in our need to wear such symbols, it’s easy to define: My beliefs were made of the sadness of the survivors, the pride for those who served and the support of a nation in a time of great need. As we commemorate that fateful day, I wonder how many people will be dutifully dusting off a cap pulled from some corner of their closet, and once again donning those symbols. I wonder how much of that work that passed through our hands and our machines has survived to bear witness to our collective support even to this day. As I look upon a sample of appliqué we tested for an FDNY design that I still keep on my desk, I hope our work does as much honor now to the fallen and those who forged ahead as we hoped it would then.”

No matter how far I come, I know that some part of me will always be that person who grappled with what it means to live on others’ expressions and I know that my desire to help people say what they want to say and show their culture and their affiliations freely through the very personal medium of apparel was given the sort of purpose and drive that I still maintain through what I learned from my experiences surrounding the tragedy. I’ll never stop remembering those who lost, those who helped, and those who proudly came together. I’m not one for unquestioning allegiance, but I am somebody who respects that drive for people to gather themselves up, put aside differences and to do something truly human and humane, and I hope that in my own insignificant way, the garments I’ve made for those who stand together have helped them feel that pride and connectedness for which they did so much.