SPECIAL COVER SECTION DEDICATED TO THE EVENTS OF 9/11/01 AND THE AFTERMATH
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March 12, 2002

Embedded in each panel is the name of the student artist who created that piece  

Six months after the September 11 attacks, 33 students at the Smithtown Middle School unveiled their tribute to those who stepped forward in the face of tragedy to help their neighbors. 

The framed mural, which stands over six feet tall, was presented to Suffolk County today and will be displayed at the H. Lee Dennison Building in Hauppauge before traveling to other sites around the county. County Executive Robert Gaffney thanked the students for their "heartfelt creation and fitting tribute to all those who lost their lives and those who worked in the rescue."

Art teacher, Mary Wallis and Art Instructional Specialist Mary Hennessy designed the collage with an eye toward creating a positive and uplifting image. "You'll see there are no images of the towers burning," Wallis said. 

The original design was divided into smaller units and distributed randomly to students in the two studio art classes. Each student worked on recreating a larger copy of their section, independent of what others were doing.

In addition to the artistry in each panel of the mural quilt, the students had to be careful to retain the scale of the panel so that the images would match up when assembled. Part of the challenge was not knowing who was working on adjacent panels or what the finished mural was supposed to appear. 

"The beauty of it is that you can tell that they each had no idea who was working on the adjacent piece," Wallis said, pointing to seams in the image. "The sky here is three different blues." 

The theme of the mural focused on events after the attacks she explained. "We included a lot of children in the mural because it was being made by children," she said. "We wanted the images that [were kept] to be of the country united." Their creation was a reflection of that unity.

Students worked for three months before they were shown the full picture, according to Wallis. "We took all of the unfinished panels and laid them out on the floor so they could the entire piece," she explained. The vision was met with "absolute silence," by students who until that time were unaware that their small panel was part of this larger mural.

Speaking to the gathering of parents and students at the unveiling, Gaffney said, "You should all be very proud of what you have done." Suffolk County is planning a memorial to those lost on 9/11/01 to stand in Freedom Plaza outside the Dennison Building, he explained. The mural will remain on display during that process.