AFTERMATH

 
​Maybe it was in private or maybe it was in a public forum, but some time after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center --- months, at least, perhaps years afterward --- I asked my artist-friends (Gaspar, Suzi, Ray, Jim, Susan) if that day had changed their art. I may have asked them how their art had changed, I was so sure it had shaken everyone to their cores, I had not a doubt. But not a single one, said it had affected his or her work, not one. I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t believe it.
 
9/11 almost did me in. As an artist, it forced me to change everything about my work. Its subject matter could no longer be so tough and confrontational. Its intention could no longer insist: Pay Attention, to both me-as-creator and to the eventual viewers. After 9/11, the last thing I wanted to do was to pay attention.