9/11 design by Dan Nadeau
One day, Jeb Dubus, Rob Blount, and I were in Jeb’s office at what was then the Amesbury Artworks building in Amesbury, MA. We were planning our response to the city’s RPF for the building next door, to work with artists and the city to convert it to artists’ studios. The phone rang.
It was Jeb’s brother Andre, the novelist. He told Jeb that something major had happened in New York and Jeb should go home. Jeb hung up and we continued our planning, not really understanding what Andre referred to. A little while later Andre called again. This was serious. We each immediately went home to televised scenes that will be burned in our memories forever.
The trauma in New York happened in spectacular tragedy. Later, two art events helped many people in our area deal with the emotional impact.
A few days after 9/11 I was to teach the second Drawing I class of the semester at Middlesex Community College in Lowell, MA. We were all crushed inside by our emotions, though. What should I say to these new students? I decided to let art do its job.
Abstract mark making was the subject matter and charcoal was the medium for the day. I talked about additive mark making where everyone was to make marks with charcoal in as wide a vocabulary of tones and textures as possible. I gave them each a tissue to help them with smudging, or they might use their hands. I explained about the reductive process where an eraser could make marks by removing charcoal. I asked them to think abstractly. Each student worked on an 18″ x 24″ piece of paper for the entire period. Here is a sample of what happened.
By David Makumbi
by Sonnet Stevquoah
by Jaime Parada
by Nadya Pankratova
by Pholla Long
by Zhou (Lily) Xu
We hung all the drawings done by this class in the main building at the Lowell campus. Many people stopped to ask about the power within these emotional expressions before they were even all hung.
The following summer Jim Zingarelli had an idea to work with the public to make small pictogram-like artworks which could be sold, around the time of the one year anniversary, to show support and raise money for the family of a thirty-eight year old Amesbury man who was on American flight 11, one of the ill fated flights from Boston that crashed into the World Trade Center. Jeb Dubus volunteered that we could use what was then the Amesbury Artworks building and I agreed to coordinate what we called the Pictogram Project.
Everyone who wanted to – artists and townspeople – would make 3″ x 5″ artworks on paper and with materials we provided, or on their own. We would hang them on the walls in an effort to show the staggering number of victims, each of whom was a beautiful person. On September 7th, 2002we spent the day helping everyone who walked in to Amesbury Artworks to do these art works.
In my Graphic Design class at Middlesex I had earlier assigned my students to do a simple 9 /11 logo. All of the designs were intriguing, but Dan Nadeau came up with the amazing design at the top of this page using Roman numerals. I had it made into a rubber stamp.
On day one of the Pictogram Project volunteers (including my mother, Marie Audy!) would stamp the back of each Pictogram artwork when it was complete, and write in the name of one of the victims from a list that had been published in the newspaper. In this way, we made an effort to honor those who died. Then we hung them on the wall. Here are a few of them.
On the reverse, each was personalized.
a few of the Pictograms
A few more. They were in many media and styles.
On day two of the Pictogram Project, anyone could buy one or more of these little artworks loaded with meaning for $1 each. The money raised was a symbolic gift to the widow and children of Robert Hayes.
Jeb Dubus, me, Debbie Hayes, and Jim Zingarelli
