Tribute to 9/11
This is a commission by a musician who asked if I would do a painting of his music composition played by cello, violin and viola.
The painting tells this story… Top left -quiet normal day for everyone in the plane and city. Moving right to the clashing colours of aqua and red shapes are indicative of unbalanced thought.…anxiety and confusion in the plane as people realise something is wrong. There is chaos and tension up above but it is still unseen to the city. (All of the top part relates to the plane, therefore the aeriform shapes.)
The middle part is the chaotic crashes, the fragmentation of the buildings and of the previously feeling of invulnerability…and shock in the city and across the world– The small web shapes on the left hand side are relating to MBE’s statement “The looms of crime, hidden in the dark recesses of mortal thought, are every hour weaving webs more complicated and subtle. p.102
The black sharp pointy shapes are the broken windows if you want to be literal…but if you want to be more metaphysical, they symbolise the sharp realisation of what has happened but also the hardness of heart of the perpetrators. The hearts that have no soft edges or gentleness. These shapes are also feelings of emptiness and shock and the “sharp consequences of mortal blindness” (MBE)
The long pointy yellow, orange, red and white shapes symbolise attack.
The shape with the checked “floor” (centre left) and the 3 pointed shapes going towards the light area are symbolising the people who have gone but are safely going into the light of God, upright and golden with light. This is man’s spiritual reality…strong, tall, balanced and full of light…but now unharmed by the chaos that is around them.
The jagged black shapes (middle far RIGHT) are actually visual representations of the type of sounds the cello was making…jagged, urgent, deep, dark sounds. The curved line of black pointing shapes symbolises the confused thoughts of the people who did the attack –
a jumble of darkened thoughts in a stream of negative inward chatter but sort of floating because they have no base or stability. This is also visual representation of the cello sounds.
Bottom area on the left: thin white lines and dots…these are like the “white noise” of disbelief, the silence (except for the sirens). The transparent half circles (above the white lines bottom left) are the feeling of stunned emptiness. Circles are normally symbolic of completeness but here we have unclosed circles symbolising the people’s feeling that the city is now incomplete after the event.
Bottom Centre: The drifting transparent shapes also symbolise transition of mortal thought to awareness of one consciousness in Life and to a greater awareness of God, Spirit. The dots are the feeling of time stopping and starting in fits as people try to understand. Trying to “join the dots” to understand the bigger picture. The intermittent lines also are like the long and short sounds of the violins contrasting here.
Bottom right: These shapes are obviously the space left when the towers fell…but really it is reminding us that nothing is really lost as the IDEA that the building represented is always here. The crown is a reference to where MBE writes (“Love your Enemies” in Misc. Writings) “Hate no one; for hatred is a plague-spot that spreads its virus and kills at last. I am mentally putting the crown of Love around every child, man, and woman on the planet. Perfect love casteth out fear.” So, this is that Crown of Love around EVERYONE who was affected by that event.