Remembering 9-11 September 11, 2011

Six Months after 9/11 I visited New York to meet the owners of the Eleanor Ettinger Gallery. I had come to see the space where I would have my first solo art exhibition in downtown Soho.


I visited Ground Zero, and painted a nocturne of the melancholy scene. The air still smelled of death. Windows still shattered, and papers strewn up in the neighboring trees.


I hired a taxi cab to take me through the Lincoln Tunnel over to Hoboken, where I set up my easel and sketched the luminous bluish white lights rising up deep into the night sky.


It was an ominous sight to behold. My painting doesn't even scratch the surface of the depth of significance these search lights represented. 


All I know, is it was a pivotal moment for me and my philosophy on life.




Blue Lights, Ground Zero
36"x12" oil/canvas 2002
www.thomasvanstein.net