Journalism Answers Crisis A Creative Reply

Author: Jen Greenfield

5/7/02 3:37 p.m. (live)

Me: "Did 9/11 affect your work as an artist?"

Greg: "Nope."

Me: "Is Middlebury an apathetic community?"

He: "Yup."

Me: "Do you read The Campus?"

He: "Yeah, uh, no, uh sometimes."



5/7/02 3:43 p.m. (recorded)

Me: "Did 9/11 affect your work as an artist?"

He: "Nope."

Me: "Is Middlebury an apathetic community?"

He: "Yup."

Me: "Do you read The Campus?"

He: "Yeah, uh, no, uh sometimes."



When faced with immense amounts of death and devastation the very engagement in an artistic process is not only a way to heal but perhaps a way to fight against it.

The artist in the very act declares, "No, I will not succumb, no I have not been beaten, I am alive, I create and furthermore I will communicate with other life."



Perhaps the Palestinian-American poet Suheir Hammad, who made a visit to Middlebury earlier this month, says it best in her poem "First Writing Since."



"there is life here. anyone reading this is breathing, maybe hurting,

but breathing for sure. and if there is any light to come, it will

shine from the eyes of those who look for peace and justice after the

rubble and rhetoric are cleared and the phoenix has risen.



affirm life.

affirm life.

we got to carry each other now.

you are either with life, or against it.

affirm life."



When Andy Lynch '03 lost his friend on Sept. 11 (and I hesitate to write more because I already feel as if I am talking about something I do not understand and thus have no right to further expose a wound that has not had time to properly heal) his self, work and artistry were inevitably affected by the tragedy.

The unspoken question, "How could it not be?"



Me: "Did 9/11 effect your work as an artist?"

He: "Nope."



Writing this article I struggle. How can I write this without it being a sort of manifesto on the superiority of artistic expression? With an event like the tragedies on Sept. 11 something has entered into our shared consciousness.

Work created from these times of communal despondency is not something like a Raushenberg piece referring to some menial (no offense Rob) event in his boyhood. Or is it? No doubt the way in which we look at all things now has forever been altered.

Lyrics from the likes of The Notorious B.I.G. (R.I.P.) such as, "blowin up like the world trade" and Tolkien's second part of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy "The Two Towers," amongst countless other examples, tease us into a sense of apocalyptic prophecy that we can't all help but notice. But maybe that too is the role of art "for further exposing a wound that has not had time to properly heal"? Sadly…



Me: "Is Middlebury an apathetic community?"

He: "Yup."



However divergent accounts of personal effects are the resounding answer was that the true effect of crisis is not immediate, although an immediate response is part of the process. With the destruction comes the natural and continual process of growth, and even though not limited to the realm of "art," perhaps creation is most obvious there.



At the conclusion of our pseudo-interview Andy said, "I wish I had more to say."



Perhaps the interview didn't go as well as we had both hoped, but I think he was referring to something more than that. In his dream-like existence Lynch reinstates himself as an artist more fundamentally a human being. (He, I am sure, is blushing as he reads.) It is in his pieces where he finds those words just out of reach, and it is through his process that he is able to heal himself.



Sometimes things are too awesome and fall out of the realm of language. Eventually words will attempt to reclaim them but sometimes the most honest expression lies in art.



5/7/02 3:43 p.m. (recorded)

Me, "Did 9/11 effect your work as an artist?"

He, "Nope."

Me "Is Middlebury an apathetic community?"

He, "Yup."

Me "Do you read The Campus?"

He, "Yeah, uh, no, uh sometimes."