This project ask each artist who is a member of one of the councils in the American Print Alliance or an independent subscriber to their journal, Contemporary Impressions, to take part.  They welcome participation by artists from around the world, but you must be part of the Alliance.  Artists are not assigned a person to commemorate -- use your imagination to celebrate a life. Any original work of art on/of paper will be accepted.  Although we encourage printmaking techniques, we will also accept drawings, watercolors, hand-made paper, etc.  Alliance director Carol Pulin writes, "This memorial portfolio is a way to help us comprehend the loss of so many individual lives... [With] thousands of people -- these artworks have to be different, individual images for the concept to be effective.  As viewers walk along, they will stop to think about some here and there, be drawn to another down the row, just as they might be intrigued by various faces in a crowd. To convey the sheer number and the individuality of each life is the challenge.

"On March 11th, the six-month anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks, two great beams of light rose from a site just north of Ground Zero into the night sky to honor those lost on September 11th and to celebrate the spirit of all the New Yorkers who have worked to rebuild and renew our City... Conceived in the aftermath of the September 11th tragedies, Tribute in Light is a temporary artistic gesture bringing together the vision and talent of numerous individuals who, shortly after the attacks, independently envisioned two beams of light rising from downtown New York. Finding support for their ideas, they joined forces in the spirit of the rescue and recovery effort downtown.

This memorial is a collaborative mosaic intended as a gift of remembrance to the people of New York City. Artists from across the Bay Area were asked to contribute ten 12 inch flat squares in the medium and style of their choice, each square depicting one human form with figure halves on either side (when placed in a grid, new complete figures were created.) Participating local artists, from professional painters to school children, were united in their efforts to express their own emotional responses to the World Trade Center tragedy.  Artists from Placerville to Berkeley to San Jose converged to execute the giant task of gluing and assembling the 231 contributed squares to create the 33 foot long mosaic.  The impact of this piece is twofold - from across the room the mosaic communicates the enormity of this tragic event, but up close each square is a original piece with its own personal story.

This is a national and international memorial project with over 18,000 quilt blocks that were donated and put together into the official WTC Memorial Quilt, as well as smaller charity quilts.  All the pieces are signed by there creators and are in star shapes with red, white, and blue.  The quilt will tour the country before finding a permanent home, possibly at the American Museum of Folk Art in New York City.