Don Beld and Bernice Foster
Los Angeles, California, 2011
Cotton; hand pieced and quilted
Gift of Don Beld IQM 2012.016.0011

Don Beld meant for "A Pentagon Garden" to be a memorial space, much like a cemetery. He was inspired by the layout of military cemeteries founded during the Civil War. In those cemeteries, designers arranged the burial plots in concentric circles. Each of the 184 Nine Patch blocks in this quilt contains the initials and age of one of those who died in the Pentagon building or on American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon. Beginning at the bottom center of the quilt, Beld arranged the blocks in concentric circles beginning with the youngest victim, first on the left side of the quilt and then on the right, ending with the oldest victim at the bottom center. In all, the quilt has 2,977 pieces, the total number of people killed in the terrorist attacks on 9/11. As a result, it becomes a space where all who died are symbolically gathered and where survivors may pay their respects.