Ten double-sided bright red banners, three by three feet each, are emblazoned with four graphic hands forming a circle, in the center of which is a workers title: transit workers, fox skin degreasers, hosiery loopers, wood turners, and others. The banners, styled after the Historic Philadelphia banners, hang throughout the Old City, where many of these skilled craftsmen worked. Proud Red Banners, Torn names, recognizes, and is in solidarity with Philadelphia's history of organized Labor and the individual workers who built Philadelphia and those who continue to struggle for a more equal and sustainable world.

During my research for Proud Red Banners, Torn, I wrote down workers job titles and labor organizations, ending up with a poetic and nostalgic list from which to select twenty names for the banners. Most of these skilled jobs no longer exist in Philadelphia, having been mechanized or exported to lower wage and non-union countries partially replaced by service sector jobs. I chose some titles that are global - child laborers, industrial homeworkers, others for their poetry - paperstrip twisters, sugar bag stitchers. I chose some for their historical significance - Knights of Labor, carriage builders, and others as an act of solidarity in the present - transit workers, sprinkler fitters, and still others because they were mostly performed by underpaid women - fruit dippers, seamstresses.