Rabbi Alvin Fine wrote a poem that begins with the lines:

Birth is a beginning
And death a destination
But life is a journey . . .

In the Jewish religion, these philosophical words are read every year during the somber observance of the High Holy Days.

In 2001, the New York Times froze a horrifying, yet hypnotic, moment in time as they voyeuristically displayed photos of people leaping from windows of the World Trade Towers. Like a car crash from which rubber-neckers cannot look away, these images of death captured a nation . . . and the individual’s “journey.” Those photos, combined with the reading of this poem at the High Holy Days in 2001 inspired this piece.

THE FIRST OF THE PIECES, Life is a Journey, captures a moment in history, similar to the way in which the NYT’s photos captured a moment. The piece depicts the attack on America (symbolized by the national colors used throughout the piece and the background setting forming the shape of the U.S. flag), and on the Trade Towers (symbolized by the white wooden stripes rising from the ground like the once mighty skyscrapers). The piece also captures the resultant tragedy of that day as the horror is literally translated with the bodies falling from above. Life is indeed a journey and it is more than the final moment we all experience.