Bobby Jones is a Sandia Vista Senior Living resident. He’s also the artist behind a remarkable tribute to September 11, and we wanted to share its story.
In the summer of 2002, with the first anniversary of September 11 approaching, Bobby started a project he couldn’t put down. He wanted to honor the people whose lives were changed that day. He also wanted to hold on to the Twin Towers and what they stood for.He started by collecting. Photographs.
Newspaper articles. Anything that documented what happened. He printed them out and began cutting, arranging, and layering them into collage. Piece by piece, the day became part of something bigger.
Part of his inspiration came from Jasper Johns and other American artists who took familiar national symbols and used them to say something about history and who we are.
The finished work is big. It measures roughly 7½ by 10 feet. Bobby built it in sections so it could be stored and moved more easily. Put together, those sections form an American flag.
The blue field is where his process really shows. He glued photographs, articles, and other printed pieces onto the surface. Then he rubbed blue watercolor over them, which pulled the images and words forward instead of hiding them. He used the same technique on the red stripes. The color works almost like a veil. You look through it and pieces of history come through.
Step back, and you see a flag. Step closer, and you see the photographs and headlines that captured a country in grief, courage, uncertainty, and unity.
Alongside the collage is a plaque from a cornerstone documenting the construction of the original Twin Towers. It records the history of the buildings and the people who engineered and built them. Together, the two pieces connect the towers to the people behind them.
More than twenty years later, the work means even more to us, because the man who made it is a Sandia Vista resident.
His flag is a reminder that history isn’t only in textbooks and museums. Sometimes it lives with the people who saw it happen and found a way to make it into something the rest of us can see.
It’s a work of art. It’s also a historical record and a personal act of remembrance. And it still speaks, more than two decades after he made it.
We’re proud to have Bobby as a Sandia Vista resident, and grateful he’s shared this piece of history with our community.
