Where were YOU on 9-11?
I was 17 miles from ground zero.
I had just arrived at Josephine's house at around 9:10 am....and like most clients during a fixup stage in their homes she was in the kitchen talking with the landscape designer who was to work on her patio that day, the TV was on but she had turned the volume off.
I was waiting just to say 'Good morning' ....a pause so to speak....vaguely recognizing some familiar looking building on the TV screen with some black smoke slightly flowing out of some broken windows.... Hmmm...something odd about that...the camera wasn't changing...just 'watching'....I at first thought it was a movie.....then Josephine broke her conversation with the landscaper to say that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. We watched astonished and in horror like everyone else in the US that day as the events unfolded.
Josephine's husband works only a few buildings away from the towers in the financial district and she was worried....the phones were overtaxed and she didn't hear from him until after 7pm that nite....he was 63 yrs old and a bit out of shape...yet he had walked thru Manhattan and across the Brooklyn Bridge which was closed to traffic for the next week. Only the pedestrians got out that day. He was covered in white ash...completely....but he was safe.
About this mural. Looking back I have to say that I painted this totally in a 'state of prayer' ... every brushstroke was a mantra.....I was beyond myself in every sense of a spiritual being in a physical body.
I'll never forget that day...........and my flowers in the arrangement nestled behind Josephine's family photos on her entry hall chest bear witness that even in the most tragic moments there can be transcendance over all....and that Grace will emerge thru some connection...like thru an artists hand!
I haven't the energy to even think of doing another project connected with 9-11. This is it. I was there.
I feel like by sharing this...online in this show, telling my story and where I was....my fears, shock and prayers of that day...somehow is a way of closing the door softly with peace and faith for our future.
And so it is.
