LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
Finding the Terrorist Within |
by John Bittinger Klomp |
On my fifty-seventh birthday the Pentagon was attacked and the World Trade Center was destroyed by terrorists. I will always remember where I was and what I was doing when the terrible events began to unfold. I was working in my high school classroom, grading papers when the bell rang to command the change of classes. Students from my second block drawing class began to drift into the studio, and one said to me, "The World Trade Center is on fire." Another said, "It was bombed." "No," another said, "a plane crashed into it." I said, "Are you sure," as I turned the TV on hoping to prove the reports to be rumors. However, as the screen bloomed blue and the image formed the two towers appeared, one with smoke billowing from the top 20 floors. More students entered the room. Folders were passed out and students retrieved their drawing boards. We were drawing a huge stack of shiny objects; mirrors, glasses, vases, and bottles heaped upon a table in the center of the room.
One of our computer specialists came into the studio to set up software on new computers. "Do you believe this," I said, indicating both the event unfolding on the TV, and glancing around the room noting that most students were getting back to work on their still life drawings without having been coaxed or reminded. It is not necessary to further recount the horrors of the day as the images and sounds are burned into our common consciousness. It is, however, necessary to decide how that terrible day will impact on each of our lives. My life is changed, and I realize, not for the first time, that any of us can die in an instant. This is a fact of our existence now imbued with a deep sadness because I, along with my students stood witness, in stunned silence, to the deaths of thousands as those majestic towers fell in slow motion, Brobdingnagian blue gray masses of pulverized cement, and steel superstructure that crashed to earth with the force of an atomic bomb. Then, the monster clouds of dust and smoke billowing down the canyon streets of lower Manhattan, engulfing building after building, until the entire southern tip of the island was lost beneath an evil blanket of hoary gray that slowly crept out over the East River toward Brooklyn. I can not begin to imagine what it must have been like to be strapped into a seat on one of those planes used as guided missiles by the terrorists, who were already dead men possessed by evil, victims of their own hate. These events have caused me to dwell at great length on my own work; paintings, drawings, photographs, and digital prints based on the World War Two observation towers located on Cape Henlopen. In retrospect, I am amazed at the titles I gave to these creations. For instance, "Tower #1, Primary Position," describes the Southern-most tower on Henlopen as viewed from the beach, near the dune grass. "Tower #2, Foggy Morn, Second Position," describes the more slender tower just to the north of the first viewed from the base, looking up into a hazy violet and yellow misty sky. Still another is titled "Tower #1 in Postmodern Disarray." Of course, I know that these titles have nothing to do with the tragic events of "911" as that day has become known. Nonetheless, they give me the creeps, and I experience an almost metaphysical sense of irony as I read the "Works List" I published for the current exhibit at the Blue Moon Restaurant. For me those beautiful lost towers and the World War Two observation towers have become intertwined permanently in my thoughts. The latter were created to defend the east coast cities against destruction by German U-boats though they were actually never put to the test. The World Trade Towers were created in order to help process and quicken the trade of our global economy, and they served extremely well in that function during the nearly forty years of their existence. Why did we think to defend our trade from invaders in 1940? Why have we not thought to defend our trade at the beginning of the twenty-first century? Perhaps it was easy to imagine a defense because the enemy lived 7,000 miles away. Now he is like a hidden cancerous cell that unknown to the living body, metastasizes and spreads insidiously until it threatens the national corpus from within. And, I also realize that the cancerous cells of hate live within my own person, that in my worst moments, I stand alone in a dark corridor. I turn a corner deep within the house of my thoughts and find a locked door. Fear dwells in the room behind that door, fear of the power that I perceive others to possess. Behind that room, a second in which anger dwells, and behind that, a third in which hate reigns supreme. There are other rooms beyond these, but I can not enter them. First, I must empty the dark rooms. How remarkable it is that this strange mental amalgamation of the terrible events that took place on my birthday and the art work I have made about the "World War Two Observation Towers" has helped me to see the hate that lives deep in my own heart. Recognition is the first step taken toward healing. I know that I must expend a substantial effort to clean my own house. Perhaps this is to be the most important thing I will accomplish in my fifty-seventh year and I wonder how it will effect my future art work. World War II Observation Towers Project art works in various media by John Bittinger Klomp is on display through October at Blue Moon Restaurant, 35 Baltimore Avenue in Rehoboth Beach. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 11, No. 14, October 19, 2001. |