Ascentiate Dedication Remarks / by Marci Blumberg

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“Ascentiate” Dedication Remarks
July 27, 2018

“After a year of intense work alongside my amazing wife, assistants and the wonderful memorial board, I stand here today, honored and humbled to have been entrusted with the creation of this memorial.  That I have been allowed to use my creative gift in some small way, to help facilitate healing and closure makes this moment uniquely special for me…and I am very grateful.

This entire memorial site, infused with beauty, is intended as a place of reflection and healing.  It is intended as a place of remembrance, and it is also intended to be a place of beauty.  The beauty and power of fine-art communicates a multitude of meanings to each of us individually.  To me, this place communicates that beauty can arise from ugliness.  It communicates that a diverse community can come together and produce a positive and uplifting response to a horrific and mystifying event…and, to me, the great universal power, unexplainably embedded within art, leads me to the supernatural source of that power, and in this, I find unshakeable resolve and peace beyond understanding.

My prayer today is that this memorial fulfills the purposes for which it was created.  For wrestling and healing… for questioning and closure… for grieving and for peace… for strength and love and for times of sweet reflection.”