Art helps us through the toughest of times

Art is all about expression, and showing the world how you feel. Art helps us cope with loss and tragedy. When you really think about it, art gives us an endless dumping ground, for all of those feelings that we have built up over time.

Sept. 11 touched us all in very different ways, some of us felt anger, some of us felt sorrow, some of us were confused to how something like this could happen to the seemingly invincible country that we live in. We all thought we were safe.

“As far as my own work is concerned, I feel that the events of Sept. 11 made me feel more about peace, than the patriotism that some others felt,” said Bill Fisher assistant professor of art, who teaches a drawing and printmaking class. “I just felt that there was more of a need for calm discussion toward the international hatred toward the United States than ever before.”

U.S. citizens have all dealt with the tragedies very differently. One subject that has been discussed many times before is the lack of information that is available to people about the U.S. Foreign policies.

“I think that Sept.11 could have been avoided if people all around the world had more access to information,” said Patrick Holbrook assistant professor of art, who teaches classes dealing with digital and two-dimensional design. “The Towers of Light was interesting to me.
They considered a lot of proposals before picking that one. It was so simple yet very effective. I had been very used to seeing the towers there, being that I just recently moved here from Massachusetts. I had been to the area quite a few times.”

“Maybe the most important thing that comes out of all of this is the fact that many of us are finally opening our eyes to what has been going on around us for many years,” said Setton. “I wrote a poem called ‘Hi-jacked’ right after I learned of the horrible news. The reason that I wrote the poem was that I felt that we were all hi-jacked because of what happened. How we deal with the problems at hand now, will determine what is going to happen to us as a people in the future.”

The poem that Dr. Setton compiled was published in a book, “To Mend the World, Women Reflect on 9-11.” The book is full of experiences that many different women writers had during this difficult time.

“Sept. 11 has made me feel more connected to the rest of the world,” said Dr. Ruth Setton, associate professor of English. “The events have made me more aware that we are all in this together, and that we have to learn to live together. The tragedy also made me realize even more that there is nothing out there more powerful than words. I as a writer am a witness to what is around us every day.”

Since the attacks, there seems to have been a new art “genre” created, as we set up memorials, and made ground zero into a sacred site.

“Since the attacks I have found that I have had to explore many more strategies to critique the system, so I am not simply labeled unpatriotic,” said Dr. Richard Lou, professor of art and department chair. “For me the greatest danger is not what the terrorists have done, it’s what we have done to ourselves. What the terrorists did was horrible, but the way that we feel about the events is being carefully managed by the media and the government.”

Dr. Lou feels that America has lost the real meaning behind the events that occurred, and the country has fallen into a “bandwagon state.”

“Patriotism is a wonderful thing, but at the same time we are objectifying the events and not looking to what led up to it,” said Lou. “As an artist, I have to re-think strategies that may have worked in the past to get through the many layers of packaged emotions that everyone has been participating in. A lot of people are afraid to speak out. Many of us follow a template to how we are supposed to deal with this rather than speak our minds. I tell my students to look beyond the mob that exists, and dig deeper into the situation. Right now, we are equidistant between utopia and Armageddon.”

Art has been an influenticial factor on how we have coped with the terrorist attacks. It has shown us what we are really made of, and has left no holds barred.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 13 2002. Filed under Other. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry