Artists Registry

Like everyone else I was traumatized by the events as they happened on September 11th 2001.
I was glued to the images on TV and reading everything I could in the newspapers. I could not comprehend this happening here in the United States.
I was at work when this all began to unfold. I remember thinking that it was just a terrible accident when the first plane struck. After all it happened in 1945 when a plane slammed into the Empire State Building. When the second plane struck and then the Pentagon was hit and a fourth plane went down in a field in Pennsylvania I then realized that something was terribly wrong. The plane that was taken down by the passengers had just flown over North East Ohio where I live.
As I took in everything over the following days I sat down and began to draw. I am a automotive artist but this was something that I needed to do as I tried to come to terms with what had happened. When I finished the drawing I just put it away in the closet. My wife was the only person to see it and it sat 13 years. The drawing was for me. In it was the grief, anger and pride I had felt during those days in September.
When these people attacked us they failed to break us as a nation and instead brought everyone together. I saw that in so many ways. There were the construction workers and emergency personnel at Ground Zero digging through the ruins relentlessly trying to find everyone who was lost there and rebuild what was tore down. I saw our soldiers go to Afghanistan to get the people who had done this. and right here in Akron Ohio I watched my region fill fire fighters boots with enough money to buy New York City a new fire truck, an ambulance and 2 police cars to replace the ones destroyed on September 11th.
Recently I had family visit us from Hoboken New Jersey and while looking through some of my art work they saw 'Ground Zero' and told me that I needed to do something with it and that I should contact the National 9/11 Memorial Museum.
My drawing was just an expression of what I had felt at the time. It was a gut reaction drawing with no symbolism or interpretation. I had drawn what I had seen and felt. In it I see the flames and ruins but I also see the pride I felt to be an American. I don't condone war but how do you condone this with out war.