Nancy Kevorkian is a Port Charlotte artist who found herself lowering her flag too often. “We have had too many tragic incidents with mass causualties,” she said.
Kevorkian was concerned that her actions lost meaning.
“By lowering the flag, I also started to wonder if we were eroding at the significance of lowering the flag,” Kevorkian said.
She began brainstorming a piece that would honor those lost in mass shootings. She had many ideas but landed on a flag. She made the first one from pieces of a sweatshirt and a pair of shorts.
“A piece of art, or in this case, it turned out to be a flag that shows our respect to them. Acknowledges them and know that we care and we are thinking of them. And that’s when it involved into a piece of artwork.”
Kevorkian outlined her plan digitally. Her first draft soon got ditched. She felt it didn’t capture her initial meaning. She continued to make tangible mick-ups until she was happy with how it came out.
She landed on the perfect design and called it a Recovery Flag. She designed each part as a symbol.
“The background is all black; it represents grief and mourning. The red stripe in essentially represents blood, blood-shed, injuries, pain and suffering even,” she said.
As an artist, she makes various pieces. Usually, she makes one-of-one, but she soon got requests from others.
“When I first raised the flag and I did this just recently. I had people questioning what it was. What the heck is that. When I started to explain that it was my way of honoring victims, they thought it was a cool idea, “Kevorkian said.
She said she isn’t a businessperson but is exploring avenues to sell the flag in hopes of unifying the world.
