Kids who lost loved ones on 9/11 channel grief into art at America's Camp

A new art installation at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum comes from the hearts and minds of children who lost a parent or sibling in the deadly 2001 terror attacks .

The installation, a papier-mâché sculpture titled "The Feathers of the Phoenix," is composed entirely of artwork from the children at America's Camp, a free, weeklong camp that hosted the children of 9/11 victims every summer in the Berkshires for 10 years, closing as planned in 2011 on the tragedy's 10th anniversary.

The artwork is crafted in the shape of a phoenix, an immortal, mythological bird that dies in flames before being reborn from the ashes. The sculpture boasts a 15-foot wingspan and has feathers and wings, all carefully assembled using heart-shaped notes and drawings made by the campers.

"Every feather has a story," Traci Molloy, the camp's former artistic director, said in an interview with ABC News' Linsey Davis, in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Molloy says the phoenix, in its kaleidoscopic glory, is a record of love and loss.

The artists of the piece grew up together, returning to Western Massachusetts each year to attend America's Camp, where Molloy says the children ultimately became a family.

"I have had the extraordinary gift of being able to watch them grow up," Molloy said. "I have known them longer than their deceased parent, and so has everyone at America's Camp."

She continued, "I've been so blessed, because I've been able to be with many of these kids and watch them through just rites-of-passage moments in their lives."

The children are descendants of some of the nearly 3,000 people who lost their lives on Sept. 11, 2001, when hijackers crashed planes into the World Trade Center in New York City; the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia; and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the wreckage site of United Airlines Flight 93.

Siblings Amy Gardner and Chris Gardner attended America's Camp for several years after the death of their father, firefighter Thomas Gardner, on 9/11.

"I can see the image of him waving goodbye to me right by the tree," Amy Gardner told Davis of the last memory of her father as he left for work before the 9/11 attacks.

"You hold on to any kind of hope you have, because you just -- as a kid, I feel like it's not, like, fathomable," Chris Gardner added, describing what it was like waiting to hear from his father in the days after the attacks.

Fellow camper Brittney Roy, who followed in her father's footsteps to become a police officer, also recalled the pain of losing her father on 9/11, in an interview with Davis.

"I didn't really have an opportunity to really understand what was happening," said Roy, who was in second grade at the time. "Sometimes it's hard to believe, 'Wait, I actually went through that.'"