My son Ryan Bode Moriarty was a vibrant, artistic individual who was always creating. He would regularly design and sell t-shirts on the festival circuits, following bands like Phish around. A lover of music, he was a well-practiced musician who played many different instruments. We lost Ryan to an accidental heroin overdose at the age of 33.
As we were going through Ryan’s things, we came across a linoleum block that Ryan created with the phrase, “Remember Love.” We immediately thought, this is a message from Ryan, and we printed this on t-shirts for his memorial. We hung these t-shirts on a clothesline in the backyard, and I noticed how similar they looked to Tibetan prayer flags. This inspired my idea to make recovery flags, to de-stigmatize addiction disorder and raise awareness to this disease.
As an arts educator, I wanted to make this a collaborative project where participants could make their own messages on these flags, in memory of their lost loved ones, in solidarity with others, or as motivation and strength on their own journey. That is how the Remembering Love project began.
As a young art teacher, I was involved in supporting people in the NAMES project - the AIDs memorial quilt. And I remembered the profound impact of all of those thousands and thousands of quilts being in Washington D.C., and how it really did help to change the stigma. The similarity between the virus and the brain disease of addiction is that the stigma has prevented people from connecting to care. My goal is to eventually bring this project to Washington D.C. I really hope that we can help boost a revolution of care that we need.
As we were going through Ryan’s things, we came across a linoleum block that Ryan created with the phrase, “Remember Love.” We immediately thought, this is a message from Ryan, and we printed this on t-shirts for his memorial. We hung these t-shirts on a clothesline in the backyard, and I noticed how similar they looked to Tibetan prayer flags. This inspired my idea to make recovery flags, to de-stigmatize addiction disorder and raise awareness to this disease.
As an arts educator, I wanted to make this a collaborative project where participants could make their own messages on these flags, in memory of their lost loved ones, in solidarity with others, or as motivation and strength on their own journey. That is how the Remembering Love project began.
As a young art teacher, I was involved in supporting people in the NAMES project - the AIDs memorial quilt. And I remembered the profound impact of all of those thousands and thousands of quilts being in Washington D.C., and how it really did help to change the stigma. The similarity between the virus and the brain disease of addiction is that the stigma has prevented people from connecting to care. My goal is to eventually bring this project to Washington D.C. I really hope that we can help boost a revolution of care that we need.