Creative Response

How did you respond to the events of 9/11? What do you think of when you remember the days following? If you didn’t answer Art then you need to see this website. Lisa Radakovich Holsberg has devoted years of research and her own creative output to remind us: (in her words)

Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, New Yorkers flooded the streets of their city to place poems, messages, artworks and candles in makeshift shrines and memorials at Ground Zero, Union Square, and other public places. They spontaneously exercised their freedom of expression in a way necessary to their grief, sorrow, and need to DO something. In turning to the mediums of the arts to make sense of their thoughts and feelings, they chose creation in the midst of violent destruction. The significance of this expression, for the arts and humanity, is unmistakable.

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Lisa’s new website features photographs of the art by Martha Cooper and a free cd of music, I’ll let her tell you:

The music contained in the CD Race for the Sky offers a selection of songs, American songs by American composers, that reflect the themes that surrounded us all after 9/11 – war, peace, love, loss, tragedy, redemption, New York and others. In addition to the marvelous setting of the three 9/11 poems found on the NYC city streets that is the song cycle Race for the Sky, the variety of styles from classical art song to musical theatre standard that comprise the rest of the CD capture these themes in ways that range from arrangements of folk tunes to transcendent renderings of complex poetry.


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I was in NY those days and was involved in some of the exhibits and spontaneous art-making but I had no idea until working on this website how prevalent it was. Lisa’s essays are brilliant and heartfelt guiding us through those days without pathos or sentimentality allowing the spirit of inspired creativity to shine.

In todays media saturated world we are in danger of losing our perspective. The view of those days from Lisa’s eyes is a welcome change and one I will hold on to.

Memories of 9/11, I have found, are deeply personal and reflect some of our most closely-held values and worldviews. Grief, loss, hope and fear move through us, shaping and coloring the lens through which we see ourselves, others, and our memories. This kaleidoscopic lens of our memories is important to remember, as an event as influential as 9/11 is brought to bear upon so many social and political decisions.

Race for the Sky remembers how individual and diverse New Yorkers gathered to mourn, sing, embrace, write, pray, and create together.

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