© Janette MacKinlay

ALL THAT REMAINS

“All That Remains (aka Dust Bowl) is dust that was on my belongings I rescued from our destroyed art loft (across the street from the World Trade Center in the aftermath of September 11, 2001).”

Created 2001-03

Janette MacKinlay Artist, Activist

www.theneedtoremember.com

Fourth in the series, “9/11: A Survivor’s Story,” All That Remains is made of an aluminum and glass vase, World Trade Center debris and dust, and dried berries. Photographed by Lise Gulassa

EYEWITNESS

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Janette MacKinlay was in her fourth floor art loft at 110 Liberty Street, across from the World Trade Center. Instead of beginning the day at a tower fitness club as usual, she watched stunned as two planes crashed into the Twin Towers. When the towers collapsed, the windows of the loft imploded, dust spewed everywhere. Janette fled, a wet towel over her mouth.

Janette’s “self-prescribed therapy” to heal from the trauma of being “an eyewitness, survivor, and displaced resident of the attacks of September 11, 2001,” is art — creating narrative arrangements — organic assemblages. She fuses her longtime passion for contemporary art and design with a more recent fascination with Ikebana, the art of Japanese flower arranging.

The Dust

“The return to the place was hell.. a living hell. We knew what to expect because we had seen it about an hour after the towers came down, but it was still a grim reality that had to be faced. There was a layer of dust on everything,” Janette wrote in her book, FORTUNATE: A Personal Diary of 9/11. Eerily, she prophetized, “I am going to be haunted by the dust for the rest of my life.” In an honest, inward look, Janette admitted, “The dust seemed to have an emotional impact on me.” Read the rest of this entry »

   painting by Claudia Chapline

In a dream, I’m standing on a ladder painting a large (American) flag. When I awoke the next day, I sketched the flag in my journal and then I made a small painting from the drawing/dream. The stars resemble exploding bombs, the stripes, missiles. A skeleton’s head emerges from the war machinery.

For me, the flag painting symbolizes the discrepancy between American ideals and manifest American policy.

March 11, 2006
Claudia Chapline
Artist, activist, Gallery owner
Stinson Beach, California
www.cchapline.com

(Editor’s Note: Around the time of the dream, beginning the third year of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis had died.)

~~~~~~~~~

THE PEACE POETRY OF CLAUDIA CHAPLINE

March Wind in February

Roaring dark branches crash against the house
weather strips whistle wind songs sunbrellas
flap white caps yellow chairs in the lagoon
pine trees wave hello crane pulleys sway overhead

aluminum thoughts plastic words fly in and out
say goodbye dreams fragment gates open
between sleep and waking I wheel out and in
outside a feral cat cries

elsewhere a flag shreds the far groaning
screams in a wind of fire I see it a flag of
death red stripes of blood dripping on the
white ribs of civilizations the stars fiery
sparks from bombs bursting in the blue black
night of lands destroyed in this wind of war

but here now in Eastcoot Creek wild salmon
still spawn between the willows
here the camp the captain time being what
not forever spilling seeds of life in silver mist.

October 10, 2001

On the anniversary of my mother¹s death
the United States is bombing Afghanistan
they are bombing Afghanistan
to rid the world of evil

To rid the world of evil
the U.S. military
is killing Afghan civilians.
food drops onto landmines.

my tears are falling
on the anniversary of
my mother¹s death.
it is Arts Day in California.

How They Strut

High mucky mucks decorate each other
with ribboned medals of valor for service
in the war of their making

women of the world
raise your voices against their wars

I see the goddess Kali dancing with them her
dance of death she wears a necklace of skulls
she holds a bloody head in her left hand a
burnt child in the other

women of the world remove your rings
that sparkle with African tears

how they strut those high mucky mucks
preserving freedom to kill for oil

women of the world join hands
in a circle of love

how they strut smiling those
greedy killers patting each other¹s backs

walk together toward a necklace of peace
women of the world

how they strut those old men with pendulous bellies
while their young civil servants sons of other fathers
fall and die in their War on Iraq

how they strut while the world cries
for the voices of women
the voices of love.

Read the rest of this entry »

“You have an abnormal Pap test — Class 3 — pre-cancerous,” the internist stated flatly. “It’s probably related to your IUD. Make an appointment to have the IUD removed.”

Abnormal. Pre-cancerous. I hang up the telephone in my office and steady myself against the desk. “Why me? Why now?” I ask myself. “I need to redo my will. Why do anything else?” Feeling terrified, I begin to think about immediacy and squeezing as much as I can into my remaining time.

In a quiet corner, I peer out the window in astonishment at the news. It is 1984. Ironically, I had recently turned 40 and wanted to be sure I was in tiptop shape. Then, from somewhere, I recall what I dreamed the night before the routine physical.

I scrawl what I remember from my dreams on the backs of pink telephone message slips:

I am riding on a bus up California Street in San Francisco . . I am sitting in the elderly/handicapped section. The bus driver says to me, “Ugh you’ re disgusting. Around your mouth is dirty and you have stuff - lesions - on your skin.”

As a woman, did I somehow consider myself to be handicapped? Did society consider a woman who spoke out about her views unclean? These thoughts race through my mind all the way home from work until I am finally in the warm embrace of my apartment. Pacing between my couches, I resolve that I will not let the diagnosis get to me.

Read the rest of this entry »