America the Beautiful, a painting by Michael Perez, is featured in an exhibition at the Hofstra Museum.
By Kaitlin Andorfer and Tiffany Ayuda
Nassau News Staff Writers
Following the grim days after September 11, 2001, Geri Solomon of the Long Island Studies Institute (LISI) knew she had to do something to preserve those emotions so the tragic day would never be forgotten.
She started collecting e-mails, newspapers, photographs, official documents and emergency responders’ gear.
The Hofstra Museum is now showcasing the project created by Solomon in the exhibit, "Voiceless in the Presence of Realities" -- a physical manifestation of responses to September 11, created by the institute as a commemorative look at how the events of this day affected Long Island residents.
"As an archivist and historian, I felt that we needed to contribute, as well as to remember. We collected the materials that those in the future will use to understand the day of September 11 and the days immediately following," Solomon said in an interview.
After months of collecting these pieces, LISI then received a grant to process materials and display them to the public. Solomon named the exhibit "Voiceless in the Presence of Realities," a line from the poem "Silence" by Edgar Lee Masters because "how would one describe an overwhelming hatred or those feelings of true love? We are indeed ‘voiceless in the presence of realities’-- we cannot speak."
One of the artists featured in the exhibit, Robert Harrison, a photographer from East Meadow, photographed many permanent memorials that individual artists, as well as Long Island towns, created to remember September 11th. The exhibit includes photographs of a wall of names of loved ones at the Holy Rood Cemetery in Westbury, and of a memorial fountain at Overlook Beach in Babylon entitled "Broken Heart." The exhibit also includes Harrison’s photograph of the "Phoenix" sculpture by John Safer erected in 2002 on Hofstra’s South Campus to pay tribute to 9/11 victims who were part of the Hofstra community.
"After the shock and horror of the events on September 11th, they were fleshed out in my consciousness and seemingly took on a life of their own. They are the visual expression of my own feelings to this tragedy," Susan Oakes said about her design of computer graphics and images that she transfered onto canvas entitled
September 11th, 2001: Untimely Death.
Michael Perez, a painter, captures the sadness of the tragic event in
America the Beautiful, which is the exhibit’s program cover artwork and shows the reflection of the towers in the eyes of a girl with a single tear.
Solomon says that Perez’s painting is considered to be the visual embodiment of Master’s poem "Silence." "The poem describes a variety of instances where the ability to express oneself is stifled," she said.
"This is such a touching emotional display of how Americans felt on 9/11," Dolores Buckley, a museum visitor from Massapequa, said.
The current exhibit was a top rated pick by
Newsday for fall, according to Beth E. Levinthal, who has been the museum’s director for two months. A Hofstra alum, she was previously executive director of the Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington for 12 years.
"There has been a major thrust at promoting the museum to the community," she said."We hope the community will see the museum as a great resource."
The 9/11 exhibit is drawing in students as well. The School for University Studies will now hold seven of its sessions in the museum, in which Levinthal will talk about works in the current collection along with sculptures on campus. In addition, students in a sociology class on terrorism will meet in the museum to talk about the 9/11 exhibit.
A relatively new addition to the University, the museum was established in 1999 and showcased its first exhibit, "Nassau County at 100: Now and Then Photographs." Through the years, the museum has steadily grown and has attracted some permanent visitors, but it has not gained as much recognition from the public until recently.
The museum is located on the south side of campus, behind Lowe Hall. "Voiceless in the Presence of Realities" will be displayed until December 10th. For more information, call 516-463-5672.
Silence
Edgar Lee Masters
(1869-1943)
I have known the silence of the stars and of the sea,
And the silence of the city when it pauses,
And the silence of a man and a maid,
And the silence of the sick
When their eyes roam about the room.
And I ask: For the depths
Of what use is language?
A beast of the field moans a few times
When death takes its young.
And we are voiceless in the presence of realities --
We cannot speak.
A curious boy asks an old soldier
Sitting in front of the grocery store,
"How did you lose your leg?"
And the old soldier is struck with silence,
Or his mind flies away
Because he cannot concentrate it on Gettysburg,
It comes back jocosely
And he says, "A bear bit it off."
And the boy wonders, while the old soldier
Dumbly, feebly lives over
The flashes of guns, the thunder of cannon,
The shrieks of the slain,
And himself lying on the ground,
And the hospital surgeons, the knives,
And the long days in bed.
But if he could describe it all
He would be an artist.
But if he were an artist there would be deeper wounds
Which he could not describe.
There is the silence of a great hatred,
And the silence of a great love,
And the silence of an embittered friendship.
There is the silence of a spiritual crisis,
Through which your soul, exquisitely tortured,
Comes with visions not to be uttered Into a realm of higher life.
There is the silence of defeat.
There is the silence of those unjustly punished
And the silence of the dying whose hand
Suddenly grips yours.
There is the silence between father and son,
When the father cannot explain his life,
Even though he be misunderstood for it.
There is the silence that comes between husband and wife.
There is the silence of those who have failed;
And the vast silence that covers
Broken nations and vanquished leaders.
There is the silence of Lincoln,
Thinking of the poverty of his youth.
And the silence of Napoleon
After Waterloo.
And the silence of Jeanne d'Arc
Saying amid the flames, "Blessed Jesus" --
Revealing in two words all sorrows, all hope.
And there is the silence of age,
Too full of wisdom for the tongue to utter it
In words intelligible to those who have not lived
The great range of life.
And there is the silence of the dead.
If we who are in life cannot speak
Of profound experiences,
Why do you marvel that the dead
Do not tell you of death?
Their silence shall be interpreted
As we approach them.
FYI: Membership, which now includes 120 people, includes admission to all university art exhibitions, invitations to museum receptions, discounts on museum-sponsored trips, and discounts in the museum gift shop. An annual membership costs $35, but it's $30 for Hofstra alumni, $25 for senior citizens, and $5 for students.
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The speakers, like the audience, were a mix of black and white.