October 18, 2001
Campus Responding To Tragedy: Staffer’s art helps her cope
“Artists and Art Making: How Should We Proceed Post Sept. 11?” was the title of the session, and facilitator Robyn Hunt, professor of drama, had asked everyone to introduce themselves. When it was Kathryn Sharpe’s turn, she shared with participants miniature copies of two pieces of art she had created in response to the tragedy.
Sharpe is not an art professor or a professional artist. She’s an information specialist in Computing and Communications. But, typical of those who attended the session, she wanted to use art as a means of processing and sharing how she felt.
“I came to work after it happened, but I just couldn’t believe how difficult it was to concentrate,” she said. “By Thursday I knew, ‘I have to take some time off and I have to meditate and I have to think about this and I have to do something.'”
What she did was to create an abstract painting – a shape that was like the World Trade Center, with a piece of the canvas deliberately ripped. She brought it in to work the next day, hung it on the wall in C&C’s reception area, pushed a table against the wall, and placed a vase of flowers on the table. Then she sent e-mail to people to let them know she was creating a memorial and to invite them to contribute if they wanted.
But though that action was satisfying, it somehow wasn’t enough. The feelings still nagged at Sharpe. “I wanted to express the idea of something coming from the ashes,” she said. “I don’t know what the ‘phoenix rising from the ashes’ means exactly. I didn’t want it to be something that was warlike or would divide us all. I wanted something coming from the ashes that was compassionate.”
This time, Sharpe decided to work with some materials she already had – specifically, a face she’d started years ago that was intended to be Mother Earth crying over the condition of the planet. “My sister had seen that on the wall of my studio and said ‘I couldn’t stand to have that in the room with me; it’s too sad,'” Sharpe said.
“So I realized you somehow have to transform pain into something that people can bear, but I didn’t want to forget it entirely. What I did was cut that face out and start layering over it with this idea of a peaceful, compassionate face like a Buddha’s face.”
That painting took its place beside the other one in her office’s reception area.
And how have her coworkers reacted?
“The people who have said anything to me have been positive,” Sharpe said, “although one person did ask me to move the face to a wall that was not directly across from our lobby door. He felt it was too powerful an image to see first thing in the morning.
“Many people have brought messages and small items for the memorial. I can think of three people who came and found me to thank me and said it makes it more bearable to come to work during this time because those images are there.”
It was exactly what Sharpe needed to hear. An art student here years ago, she’d stopped painting when she married and had children, concentrating instead on working, buying a house, and all the other things that consume most people’s time. Then last year, when she heard Art Professor Norman Lundin would soon be retiring, she used her staff education credit to take classes from him before it was too late.
The studying – together with her own growth since her earlier student days – prepared her for doing the current paintings. “My art was way too emotional before,” she said. “It was hard for me to pursue it because I was too invested in it, and I didn’t know myself; I don’t think I was mature enough. It really helps me now to have some formal training, to be able to think, ‘How does it work visually?’ Now, when I have an emotional response and I need to do something, it’s much easier to accomplish, and I’m more accepting of what comes out.”
Still, it was more than just working out a feeling. Sharpe said the terrorist attacks made her ask herself first, “What am I willing to die for?” The terrorists were willing to die for what they believed; what about her? But then she turned the question around and asked, “What do I want to live for?”
“I finally decided that you have to act to heal yourself, but also to heal others,” she said. “I believe that art can be healing, and I also believe that we are all artists.”
Not yourself? Not to worry
John Yurich, the interim director of the UW’s Student Counseling Center, said people need to cut themselves and others some slack during these stressful times. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States are bound to have effects even as far away as Seattle.
Some of the subtle signs that indicate you may be feeling increased stress due to the attacks, according to Yurich, include:
The most important thing people can do to help themselves through these difficult times, Yurich said, is to talk with others. This interaction helps ease feelings of isolation and anxiety and often it leads to the realization that our feelings are normal.
