Artists Registry

On a cold winters night in late February, 2001, I saw a late night commercial aired by our government. No one I knew had seen them, but in a nutshell they asked if we knew of any person responsible for terrorist acts and they wanted information. They showed footage of bloody people in what looked like third world countries and buildings reduced to rubble. How strange, I thought. Did I really just see that?

A little over half a year later, the morning of September 11, 2001, a Tuesday, while getting ready for work, they announced on the radio that it appeared a small plane had struck the World Trade Center in New York City. When they broke into the show with a second bulletin, I turned on the TV and saw the building on fire. Reports started coming in from all directions. Then I watched as the second plane hit the towers and I yelled out. This was no accident. This was a war.

I shook my head all the way to work that morning in disbelief in what I had seen just minutes earlier. I now wonder why I even left the house that day. No one came to our office except my student employee, who did not own a television.

I explained what had happened and sat her in front of the TV. When I returned to the room a little later she sat stunned by the news. I sent her home early. Nothing got done that day and most classes were canceled. Instructors who did hold class had discussions on what had happened that morning.

Everyone had suddenly turned incredibly polite, opening doors and waiting turns at the stop signs. There was a kindness amongst strangers and the vibe completely different. Behavior had been affected and altered, at least for a few days.

It is said that perhaps a fifth plane, that did not materialize, planned to take out Chicago. Newscasters were reporting unverified facts and everyone was nervous thinking about what would come next. Finally the word came that all planes were grounded and accounted for.

Not too far from Chicago a jet had turned around to the east high above Ohio. They thought it was headed for Washington D.C., but it crashed outside of Shanksville, Pennsylvania in a rural area, not reaching it's intended target. Heroes saved us from more destruction, but lives of so many were changed forever. Stories of those heroes resound to this day. Americans know what they did for us. It’s a debt we cannot take for granted.

I felt so bad for the people trapped in the towers and on the airplanes. What fear they all faced on that unbelievable day. To be in that situation is unimaginable.

It was a strange few days after the 11th for no sound to be heard from the sky or rails. America had come to a screeching halt. No one was out. The streets were quiet.

Life as we know it would never be the same. I remember hearing someone interviewed out west, 'Nothing will change for us. We don't have terrorists in Oklahoma". Yeah, I thought. How blind can you be? Are you not a part of this country?

I live in a small mid-western town surrounded by cornfields, 800 miles away from New York city. New Yorkers probably didn’t realize how the world grieved for them, but we were with you New York, and D.C., and Shanksville.

Not too much gets by these days without someone capturing a moment on digital devices. When I was little I thought we were all on television until my brother told me it was not so. But today it is true. Someone is almost always watching and getting the information out there. I am a news hound thanks to having a journalist father. The photographer in me has to document everything. I have to save information.

I watched every news show and documentary on the subject to try to make sense of what had happened. I wondered how my father would have reacted to this.

After two weeks of evenings camped in front of the television I had to do something constructive.

I chatted with my neighbor and told her I needed to do something. She felt the same way. We decided to have a neighborhood walk and get everyone outside again. We organized a walk for the two week anniversary of 9/11 and I went shopping. I bought every red, white, and blue paper bag I could find to make luminaries. A team effort immediately went into effect.
The neighbors bought a pile of sand to weigh down the bags. The kids went door to door giving notice about delivery and to light their luminaries and come out and walk, meet your neighbors, get some air. It seemed everyone was ’in’. So an assembly line developed, bags assembled. The kids loaded their wagons and delivered the luminaries throughout the neighborhood. As we made our way around, some families were watching out their windows giving us a wave. Light your luminaries and unite in the street.

That evening entire families walked the streets. It was unbelievable. I guess I wasn't the only one needing to snap out of it. Everyone wanted to come out to walk and talk and feel again. Looking down the street all lit up with our little red, white, and blue luminary bags, and people taking the time to share was a beautiful site. Our statement to the world. We are in this together. I think it made a difference.

During this time I was compelled to create art.

I thought a lot about how huge this was. Freshly re-educated about money, power, religion, new world order, secret societies, government, a different point of view. They said business would suffer from this event and in turn cause ripples throughout the U.S. It would take years to recover. Predictions were that we would have to wait an entire generation for this sort of terrorist thinking to wane. I guess we are in the middle of that now.

I traveled to Ground Zero in June of 2002. I had never wanted to go to New York before. The impression of it's cold and uncaring society didn't put it on my must see list. 9/11 changed that. I had to see it for myself. To photograph it. To feel it. So my niece and I hopped a plane to LaGuardia. We found the city quite empty of tourists. Walking on the boardwalk to the public viewing area at Ground Zero was the most solemn moment I have encountered. Many had walked this way before us and had left their mark in ink. We left ours there too.
I will go to New York again some day. I met a lot of kind people on that trip.

Not many saw the photos I created or captured, but I include some here to show what a mid-westerner's view from that place was like ten years ago. I wish I would have covered it better.

This year, the tenth anniversary of the attack on America, our neighborhood will have American flags lining the parkway of nearly sixty homes. My friends and neighbors will help put the flags out and we will walk the neighborhood together and probably reflect on the memories of 2001 this tenth anniversary of 9/11, Patriots Day. I will be capturing images to save for the future.