9/11-911

I woke up on the morning of 9/11/01 to a phone call from my mother in New Jersey. “A small plane hit the World Trade Center,” she said, “you should turn on your TV.” There was no alarm in her voice. It didn’t sound like anything I needed to rush to see. After about 20 minutes, I got my pregnant body out of bed and waddled over to the television and turned it on.

I will never forget that moment or the hours and days that followed.

Over the next year I collected every article I found on what happened that day. I wanted to do something to commemorate it and to somehow enshrine my memories and feelings about it. On the one year anniversary I began the piece and I finished it by midnight that same night.

The view depicted is from the piers of New Jersey, my home state. There are several newspaper clippings, chosen for their poignancy as well as the fact that newspaper will fade and change over time, similar to one’s memories. None of the buildings in the skyline have windows because there is no escape from this reality, proven all too true by the clipping of people attempting to jump from the towers. The fine dust-like powder that covers the surface of the canvas is ash made from burning all of the articles I did not use in the collage. There is also an “I (heart) NY” button attached to the bottom right-hand corner.

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