When the theme ‘International’ was chosen I looked at my recent travels and thought about New York City. It is well known world wide for all sorts of reasons: Broadway; Times Square; Manhattan: Empire State Building and Central Park among many more. However my piece is sombre relating to that point in time when most people remember what they were doing that day – 9/11, 2001. I first visited NYC in 2009 and went to Ground Zero when they were just starting to build the memorial. It was a very touching heartfelt moment as I thought about all those affected.

Fast forward ten years to 2019 on my next visit to NYC. This time we visited the area again to see the completed memorial which is breath taking in its stillness and reverence of visitors. I took a lot of photos inside of the tributes and parts of the original towers. I was taken by the strength of the concrete pillars and how they were broken – how strong they looked yet we know they crumbled.

This is my photo of part of the structure of one of the towers. The steel supports still embedded in the concrete.

To make the steel supports I covered rope in fabric then hand stitched them to the background.

You can see how the stitching creates the ridges in the steel that you would normally see.

I also embedded both ends into the background through inserting them through the fabric. This reflects how the steel in the photo above is embedded in the concrete.

To the left is the full piece – quite dirty and rustic. The background fabric was first dyed an Ecru colour then rusted to provide the texture and colours.

The crosses represent those that perished and how my thoughts are with them and their families.

I may add a few more crosses but will let it sit for a time before doing that.

Many people across the world were affected by this tragedy and I feel that anyone from anywhere in the world would visit the Memorial when going to NYC therefore it is a truly international memorial.

Size (39 inches high x 16 inches wide) Unfortunately my extensive stitching and ropes reduced the size quite a lot from the 40 inches high it is meant to be. Thats a lesson for next time!