This was local to me. Friends, clients, adult children of friends, in the Towers. My train station lot full of commuter cars of people who would never return, neighbors finally getting home, filthy, exhausted, two days later.
That morning I, and other artists were meeting to hang a group show. We all kept going, after the first strike, still met, still hung the show, crying. We'd all separately decided that terrorists couldn't be allowed to interfere with art. We wouldn't give them the win.
In that spirit, here's a presentation of Indian trade cloth and cultural exchange, as promised yesterday. I'm posting without commentary, since the slides are labeled and dated. Where pieces are not attributed, they're in the collection of the presenter.
Happy day, everyone, there's always light and art and each other.
It was local to me too -- I lived on E. 90th Street in Manhattan at the time. A traumatic day for sure, and the beginning of a couple of traumatic years.
ReplyDeleteYou get it. Terrible day.
Deletefor the longest I thought textiles were going to be my art form.
ReplyDeleteI haven't settled on my art form yet!
ReplyDeleteWe all remember where we were when we heard that horrible news. Even those of us who were geographically far away, felt the reverberations to our bones. And there is no way to forget.
ReplyDeleteIt changed who we are.
DeleteI was in the kitchen when I saw the first plane hit the tower. My farrier came a little later and I brought the TV from the barn office into the barn aisle so we could watch the reporting. We were in a state of shock, halfway across the country.
ReplyDeleteWe were all very anxious in case the Sears building (another high rise, for people not aware of it) might be targeted.
DeleteLight, art and each other, so true. A terrible event, I was driving to work in California when I heard the news and I thought, is this war?
ReplyDeleteYes, and was there more to come?
DeleteThe attacks were not local to me, but they affected me in a way nothing else in my lifetime has. It saddens me that "never forget" seems to have been forgotten. To be fair, I realize a whole generation has been born and grown up since then, so it won't mean as much to them. But, today, my heart grieves for those who lost family and friends in the tragedy.
ReplyDeleteTo me, no stranger to enemy attacks right on my home, it was the end of white American innocence, the sense of security within their borders that my friends had. That was when some of them realized that combat wasn't something you had to cross an ocean to be in. I got a lot of calls that week on this subject, asking me how they should go forward. Black friends had never had that assurance.
DeleteIt was a horrible day for humanity. I woke up to the news. I saw it on the television and thought it was a trailer for a new movie. It wasn’t
ReplyDeleteAlthough we just wanted to go and hide with grief. We walked out into the world and kept our day aw normal as possible. All the while with one ear on the radio for news.
I think that was the right approach. Don't let them interfere with normal life, as far as possible.
DeleteOh you were so right. We cannot let terrorism stop art!
ReplyDeleteArt rules!
DeleteYes, I set up for an art show that weekend, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, in Sarasota, NY, at the Performing Arts Center. My two great impressions: blue skies (no contrails) and subdued silence from the very large crowd. Much of my family didn't want me to go, but like you, all of us there were in defiance of terror.
ReplyDeleteI think you did right.
DeleteI remember feeling so much fear, and yet so far away in Indiana. I couldn't imagine what those who were closer to the attacks felt. I do remember wondering when the next strike might come, and where. I imagine I wasn't alone in that thought.
ReplyDeleteBecki, that's what people born later don't realize: we didn't know if there would be more attacks. The NJ water supplies and power grid were so vulnerable, and ours was the post office which had the anthrax attack. We had no way of knowing if it had ended, and who exactly had triggered it all.
DeleteAh yes, I forgot about the anthrax. I have forgotten, too, when life resumed some normalcy. It definitely changed us.
DeleteIt is so important that you and Steve and all the others with first-hand experience of the tragedy of Sept 11 continue to bear witness - both for those who were not born or not old enough to remember, and also for those of us so far removed that the events were completely unimaginable, despite the TV and radio coverage. I too grieve all the people - all those unique individuals - who died that day, and all the emotional scars on the survivors and families. A tragic, tragic day.
ReplyDeleteDespite all, art rules - and the Indian textiles exhibition is stunning. Thank you for all the work you did to share it with us.
Chris from Boise
That's an important point, Chris, that firsthand witness work. People are still dying from the exposure in the buildings, surviving office workers, first responders, others, too.
DeleteAnd yes, the power of art is there.
Thank you for sharing your memories of 9/11. It's a day I know I will never forget -- won't forget a thing I did all day. The cloth is beautiful.
ReplyDeleteYes, I think that's true for people all over the world.
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