Just Under the Surface
Watercolor, pencil, mixed media.

For so many, that bright, severe clear Tuesday 21 years ago is just under the surface. It will always be just under the surface.

The clear blue of the skies of this painting, known as “severe clear”, an aviation term used by pilots to describe unlimited visibility, both above and below the horizon line, are constructed from the portraits of the nearly 3,000 people who were killed at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

It’s impossible to know how many lives have been lost in the years since the 9/11 attacks due to suicide, war, and medical complications. 21 years later, those numbers now dwarf the original death toll of that Tuesday in September 2001.