Tag: Political Quilts

Remembering September 11

I still feel strong emotions when September 11 rolls around. As I implied last year, what has changed?

Fireball, 2001
Fireball, 2001

I made two quilts to commemorate the lives lost during the destruction of the Twin Towers. The first one was Fireball, which is what I could see as I sat and watched TV.

It is chaotic, reminds me of smoke and flames. This is a small quilt, maybe 12×12, and I was able to channel the pure emotion into this piece as I made it very quickly. I was doing woven art pieces at the time and this is one of them.

What Comes Next, 2001-2002
What Comes Next, 2001-2002

The quilt I really wanted to make took longer. I wanted to plead for something different than what we got. I wish something different than a 20+ year war could have come out of that. people just want to fight when they are attacked; they don’t want to talk.

This is a hard post for me to write. I force myself to do it every year, to get the message of What Comes Next out there, so, perhaps, people will think and do something different next time.

Remember September 11

What Comes Next, 2001-2002
What Comes Next, 2001-2002

I thought about not writing this post this year. Then I thought about the recent takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban and all the changes that have taken place in the Middle East since 9/11. My quilt ‘What Comes Next’ still reflects my vision of the future.

In a New York Times article I saw this week, the photo says “more of the same” to me. Members of the Taliban leadership sit in a room in the home of the former Afghan intelligence chief in Kabul. They are all men. They have guns in a room that looks like it once was a place where people sat and talked before a fancy dinner.

I don’t see anyone doing anything different. People fight each other for power. They destroy everything and then try to govern the rubble. Families are broken apart; cities are ruined and so many people have died since 2001. I don’t see the point anymore. Did we get justice for those on the planes?

9/11 Again

Once again, 9/11 is upon us. It sort of snuck up on me this year. There hasn’t been the hoopla surrounding the event as there was last year. I guess there has been too much other stuff going on.

What Comes Next, 2001-2002
What Comes Next, 2001-2002

What Comes Next hangs in my workroom so I look at it every day. In some ways, it can be construed as an altar, because I do look at it every time I pass by and hope that my wish espoused in this quilt is not too far away. It isn’t just part of the background even after so many years.

Like Down the Drain, this quilt was meant to be and came together relatively quickly and with few problems.

I still remember 9/11. I had an almost 5YO. DH was out of town with our BIL on a vacation. I didn’t even know what had happened, because I don’t listen to the news before I head off to work. My mom called me in a panic telling me to turn on the TV. I didn’t want to and couldn’t imagine why it mattered. I couldn’t imagine something like the actions of 9/11 happening.

What’s worse is what came after. The wars, ISIS, Al-Quaida, the European cities under siege, the huge debt that will crush us all one day. The mess that is the Middle East. I am not saying that those things wouldn’t have happened anyway, but I think a different response was required.