Today's video is the first from our AuthorViews Summer Tour to Austin in June. That's where we caught up with New Orleans artist Elizabeth Underwood at her studio in the IDEA building -- a renovated bread factory that has become a home to many who work in the creative arts.

In today's 2-minute video, Underwood talks about her use of language in art. An early and ardent blogger (see her New Orleans Gypsy blog), Underwood weaves words into her work, quite literally. The day we filmed, she was writing out in longhand the names of the dead from Hurricane Katrina.

Today, as the names of the dead from the World Trade Center attack are read aloud in New York and other cities around the world, we acknowledge the power of the ceremony and mourn the loss of innocents.