After the terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, the American people were frantic for answers. As the fragility of life became painfully apparent, everyone wanted reassurance that things in this country were going to be fine. In addition, the financial impact those four hijacked planes placed on the nation was astronomical. The Red Cross was immediately in great need of resources to extend healing and assistance to those affected by the tragedy.

Grace Church of St. Louis decided to contribute to the nation's rally. On October 26, 2001, Grace held a benefit concert, featuring songs chosen to reassure that God had things under control. Using the worship team and band (of which I am a member), Grace purchased a 48-track hard disk recording system, and took donations to benefit the New York Backstoppers. After the concert was over, the process of designing artwork for the CD (the proceeds from which would go to benefit the Backstoppers as well).

Though the CD had a spiritual foundation, we didn't want the usual contemporary, uplifting design that typically adorns a worship CD. The subject matter was gritty; therefore, we wanted the tone of the CD to be dark and sketchy as well. Photographer Tom Schneller used black-and-white film to capture the stills from the concert, and, using the proof sheets, I scanned in the shots, forcing me to zoom in very closely on the people and objects therein. This brought out the film grain, which added considerably to the unclean texture of the project.

After the photos were scanned, the next challenge was to extract color out of the black-and-white shots. Obviously, since there was no color initially, I had to throw in splashes of red and blue to illustrate the liquid bands of the American spirit.

On the back cover, several song titles were deliberately misspelled and formatted sloppily, as though the entire project was thrown together in a hurry--as was every organization committed to aiding the situation.