Americana Stars Memorial©
Doreen Lynn Saunders Offers Hope for the
Future
by Lynn
Kordus
When the events of
September 11, 2001, occurred, Doreen Lynn Saunders was working for a
company at 34th Street and 6th Avenue, a central location in New York
City. As a New York area resident, she created and cross-stitched An
Americana Flag to honor the victims of 9/11 and to help her get
through her initial trauma.
Doreen is a graduate of
the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and the author of three
books that feature drawings of quilts. In 1976, she was part of a
three-person design team that created and constructed a
multi-dimensional window display of the bicentennial events taking place
in New York City. Since then, she has been working in the apparel and
home furnishings industries as a textiles, trimmings, and product
designer.
In 1999, Doreen discovered cross-stitching as an additional artistic outlet and has been
cross-stitching almost exclusively since then. "I have been combining
my two loves, quilts and cross-stitching, for several years to develop my
signature technique."
Explaining the impetus
behind An Americana Flag she said, "I never owned an American
flag and always wanted one, so I thought what better way to fulfill that
desire than to make my own as a tribute."
Doreen says the
unexpected and extraordinary responses from everyone who has seen her
flag, which, at 40" x 24", is almost full size, led her to believe it
was necessary to create a follow-up piece "that might help others as my
flag has helped me." Now, she has designed The Americana Stars
Memorial, a much larger tribute piece that stems from the design
elements of An Americana Flag.
The new piece will honor every
victim of 9/11, and will feature more than 3,000 different stars, all of
them cross-stitched, each to honor a victim of that day. They will
include those of the World Trade Center Towers, the Pentagon,
Pennsylvania, the 1993 World Trade Center victims, and Sirius, the
electronic detection police dog that was killed on 9/11.
Each star will be
cross-stitched onto white Aida counted cross-stitch fabric. They will be
mounted onto navy blue Aida panels with 64 stars on each panel. Under
every star the name of a victim will be cross-stitched into the
fabric.
In order to accommodate
the more than 3,000 stars, Doreen's project will consist of 47-50
panels, each measuring 2.5' x 4'. Stitched across the top of each panel
will be American slogans, as well as excerpts from many speeches and
songs from our history, including The Pledge of Allegiance, the
Star Spangled Banner, and phrases from The Gettysburg
Address and The Constitution. "The verses will flow from one
panel to the next," she says, "tying the panels together with words."
The completed project will be approximately 210' wide. The panels will
be arranged in such a way that if you were to see them from above, they
will form the letters "U S" for United States, and "us" to include the
world. She has been working on this project for about a year and
estimates the project will take her two to three more years to
complete.
The specific idea for the
project design came to Doreen as she researched the history of our
country's flag for her initial flag design. "The United States of
America was the beginning of a country like no other before it," she
says. "Its ideals and aspirations were brand new concepts that had
never before been attempted in creating a government. As Betsy Ross and
our forefathers saw it, the heavens were giving birth to a new
constellation and they wanted the rest of the world to see that
reflected in the foremost symbol of this new nation. Therefore, the
blue union of the flag symbolizes the night sky above and the placement
of the stars symbolizes the United States as a new constellation in the
heavens." When she first encountered this explanation, Doreen says, "I
had goose bumps all over and my mind saw fireworks. It made absolute
sense. I feel the victims deserve to be stars in their own
constellation in the heavens and I am determined to create that here on
earth."
Instead of the classic
white five-pointed star, Doreen's are based upon an historic quilt
element commonly known as the Le Moyne Star. She explains, "The
fact that all of the stars are different is to point out the differences
between the many cultures that were touched by the losses that day. The
fact that all of the stars were created from the same shape is to show
how much we should remember what we have in common as human
beings."
To date, the following
companies have donated supplies for the project: Charles
Craft--custom-woven and dyed Aida fabric; Robinson-Anton--embroidery
floss; Dazor Mfg. Co.--lighted magnifiers; The Warm Company--fusible
interfacing; Herrschners®
--stitching supplies; and
Hobbyware--charting software.
Doreen hopes to create an
uplifting, colorful, and positive work of art for everyone. "I know
there will be many tribute pieces that are based on the depression and
angst of the circumstances, so it was especially important to me to
create something that offers us hope. Most memorials are created with a
grown-up frame of mind. Since so many of the living victims are
children, I wanted to give them a memorial that speaks to them first--a
memorial that children and adults can experience together without being
overwhelmed with sadness."
"I want children to be
attracted to the many colorful stars, recognizing that each represents a
real person. I want them to be able to understand that while this
tribute commemorates something very bad that happened to us, they can
still always feel optimistic about the future."
Doreen said she cannot
recall any time as a child or young adult when she was able to
appreciate or feel personally involved with a memorial statue or a
marble wall. "Because the 9/11 tragedy was so uniquely personal to all
of us, I felt we should have a memorial that felt personal as well.
Textiles are 'warmer' than concrete, steel, and marble. My Americana
Flag commemorates the event; The Americana Stars Memorial
commemorates each person who lost their life on that day."
"On a personal level,"
Doreen said, "When I began this project I was not sure what I would do
with it. I just knew that because I had been blessed with the artistic
ability to create it, I wanted and needed to do so. Even if all of my
thousands of stars were to sit in a box and never be exhibited, I would
still feel the need and passion to stitch them."
The New York Historical
Society has requested Doreen's An Americana Flag for display in a
future exhibit, and the National Museum of American History of the
Smithsonian Institution has requested she donate her flag to the
national collections for posterity. She also hopes The Americana
Stars Memorial will be exhibited widely, especially at the new World
Trade Center, so many will be able to view her work.
July 2007 Update Article.
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