9-11-01
On September 11th, 200I, I came into the city to continue working on my painting of the Greenmarket. That morning, I set up my equipment on the corner of Broadway and 17th Street and began to work. An airplane roared by close overhead and one of the bystanders remarked that planes never pass here. The rest is history. Seconds later the airplane crashed into the World Trade Center.
During the heartbreaking days which followed, Union Square changed. It became a somber place in which mourners gathered. There were candles, photographs and descriptions of the lost and missing, and there were names and addresses and pleas for help from those who searched.
When my painting of Union Square was finished, it felt in-complete. It was a picture of the joy of this city with the World Trade Center in the skyline. But for me, September 11th, 2001 was now a part of that view. So I went back to the original pencil drawing, erased the World Trade Center and people of Union Square with shadowy mourners. After all, we are part of both worlds and the painting and the pencil drawing are meant to speak for both.