Artists Registry

9/11 FOREVER * 11 * 175 * 77 * 93 * WT 1 * WT 2

ARTIST STATEMENT – CARLA STEINFELD

I was born in Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago on Nov. 10, 1958 and my parents and I moved to Los Angeles when I was still an infant. I currently reside in Studio City. I studied fine art and art history in college but for the most part I am a self-taught artist. My paintings are highly stylized, bold, colorful and intense. I have always loved New York City because I have a close connection to it in a number of ways. My parents and younger sisters lived there for many years before moving back to California, and my ex-husband and all of his family and relatives are from various parts of the city and Long Island. Although I have visited the city so many times over the years, I always fall in love with it all over again when I go back. I wanted to share my painting and the story that goes with it on the 9/11 Registry because it is my tribute to the victims and their families, and everyone who has seen it says it’s beautiful and very moving.

A few months prior to the 9/11 tragedy I had decided I was going to paint a street scene of New York City. I had been going through various ideas of what part of the city I should paint, but I couldn’t make up my mind. Sometime in August 2001 I was looking through some photos I had taken when I last visited NYC in 1995 when, for whatever reason, my eyes clapped on it – the World Trade Center towers. I remembered taking that photo; it was a cold day in early March and my sister and I were walking through the Village when we made a right turn down one street and right there, against a clear, cloudless sky the Towers were reflecting the sun as it shined on the Hudson River. They almost seemed opaque and I thought this would make a really lovely painting.

No sooner did I sit down in front of my canvas trying to piece together the composition when I had another idea. Why not do a collage of Americana images with the Trades in the center? Good, I thought, but what kind of Americana? Over the last several years I had become deeply immersed in the beginnings of our nation and one thing more than any other possesses my mind and heart – Freemasonry. So I pulled out one of my many books on Freemasonry and the first page I turned to was the image on the back of the dollar bill, the Great Seal with the pyramid and the all-seeing Eye of God. And then, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I went to my purse and pulled a dollar bill out. I taped it right in the center of the canvas, took out a book on American history with different flags from the Revolutionary period……incorporate some Freemasonry symbols…….. with the Trades somewhere in the center. It might work……….

I was still in the stage of drawing everything in pencil on the canvas when the 9/11 attacks happened. My ex-husband (we were married at the time) was in China for a business trip and I was home alone, but after making several phone calls we were very fortunate that none of our friends or family were hurt. Although I was so terribly heartbroken, I made a vow on that day; when I finished my painting I wanted to share it with the world. It would take me three years to finish it and much thought on how to share it, but I have finally brought it to what I think is its rightful place. Although this painting is first and foremost a testament and memorial to the victims and their families of that fateful day, it is also much more. It is a testament to our great country, with the Revolutionary flags, the ancient symbols of the pyramid and the eagle on the dollar bill, the Freemason symbols sitting at the four corners of the painting like the four corners of the compass (and the four planes), and of course, the Trades themselves as they are reborn from the ashes and shine like they did when the sun rose on that September morning. As the antennae of the North Tower reaches into “In God We Trust” may we find redemption, honor and pride as a nation and a people, and the Trades will always be there in our hearts, reflecting the river, reflecting the past and the present, reflecting that we are “ONE”, to never forget and to always,
Remember

“IN GOD WE TRUST”
E Pluribus Unum
September 11, 2001

Post Script:
It might interest people to know that in the back of the painting, on the wooden frame, I have written the flight numbers of each of the four planes directly behind each of the four Masonic symbols.