"I Love Manhattan": Visual Tributes to the Greatest City, Gallery & Studio, Jan. 2003
9/11 Paint By Numbers, Jersey Journal - September 7, 2002
Saturday, September 7, 2002
9/11 PAINT BY NUMBERS
Brush with death affects art world
By Michaelangelo Conte - Journal staff writer
While watching the tragedy of September, 11 unfold from Hoboken's shoreline, one city resident began to hear again the call of his muse amid the dim of devastation. And seeing how uncertain life truly is, he began on a journey that has ended in rededication to his first calling: painting.
After a 12-year break from his art, 49-year-old Bill Heard took up his brush again after September,11 and has since completed three large paintings based on themes from that day. His new works have already been accepted for art shows and publications.
Heard used to work as an art director in advertising and then for Time Warner in interactive television, where he earned $165,000-a-year plus a bonus, before losing his job before September,11. But today he can't imagine going back.
"Life is just too short," said Heard.
He now paints eight to 12 hours a day and hopes to sell his first new work for about $20,000.
"What if you are in a plane or a car and something terrible happens?" he said. "What would be my legacy, that I was an art director? I don't know how much I changed but now I feel I should be doing what I've always wanted to do. I think this is who I really am."
"I don't think it changed their subject matter but it has affected them subconsciously and made them much more serious about their work," said Charles Chamot, 51, an artist and owner of Chamot Gallery in the building. "They see life as less sure than it had been, and they pour each day into their work."
Chamot, too, has felt a change.
"Nine-eleven has affected my whole life," he said. "After 9/11, I felt the world was diseased. I thought art had helped to make it a better place, I guess it hadn't. I'm still an optimist though."
Many artists in the building have found an outlet for their 9/11 work though "The END of LIFE Show," an exhibit that will be up there Sept. 26 through Oct. 27. Curated by William Rodwell, the show's name is purposefully ambiguous but many works entered, such as Chamot's have September, 11 themes.
Artists at 111 First St. - and worldwide - are also working on designs for the September, 11 monument to be erected on the downtown Jersey City waterfront.
"Artists... reacted the same way as everyone else - shock, horror, dismay and grief," Winifred McNeil, who has taught painting and drawing at New Jersey City University for several years, said, "They may be political, mystical or analytical and their work will reflect those biases. In my own work, I am not addressing 9/11 directly but I am more aware of the emergency of life and the immediacy of death and that is coming through."
"It just got worse and worse," Heard said. "Someone had a radio and we learned that the Pentagon was hit, then we saw the F-16s patrolling and all of a sudden, Lower Manhattan disappeared in a cloud of dust. It was awful."
During the next three weeks, Heard decided the job-hunting in his old field seemed like the wrong direction to take and he began painting "Blue On Blue" completing it in a little more than 3 months.
The painting depicts New York Harbor with the Statue of Liberty in the foreground and the Manhattan skyline behind it, The Twin Towers standing prominently.
"I wanted to be able to see them again and the painting makes me feel better. The painting is of architecture but it speaks of the people, really, of humanity and who we were before 9/11," Heard said.
Two months later, he finished "Witness," which shows the upper portion of the Statue of Liberty - set in a starry sky - with the windows in its crown packed with people looking outward.
"It represents the impact of the entire situation, how everyone saw it in their own way and how it also brought us together. The stars speak of the lost lives," Heard said.
A pilot, too, he then began the three month process of painting "Out Of Control," depicting himself at the controls of an out-of-control airplane. A cat, a cup of spilling coffee and a photograph of his wife are airborne in the cockpit and through the windows of the Cessna, two F-16 fighter jets can be seen tailing it.
"As a pilot, I know that after 9/11, if I deviate from a flight plan, the F-16s could be launched and that is a change not likely to go away," he said. "The freedom of flying we had before is gone now. It is a personal statement but it also represents how our lives have changed since that day. We feel very insecure and we have always felt secure in this country."
"Out of Control" has already been accepted in the first Ball State Alumni Art Exhibit at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, and for inclusion in the 13th Edition of "Living Artists," a competitive publication sent to 8,000 of America's top galleries.
Heard is now working on "Carnivore," which shows a baby and a cat in bed with baby biting the cat's tail, and the cat's face showing horror and surprise.
"It's basically about the uncertainty and anxiety in our lives and at the same time, the desire to figure out what the proper justice should be," he said, "A lot of people are a lot more reactionary after 9/11, thinking in terms of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. We are all champing at the bit, we are all grasping at straws now."
McNeil's students feel the same way.
The "seem to have a greater sense of the fragility of life," she said, adding that for an artist, "9/11 is inescapable."
"September, 11 will have repercussions for years and years in the art community as artists reflect on it and relate to the past and future," she said. "I think it can't help but have an effect in the direction of art, but often art is created unconsciously and only later is it understood."
