Height 8.5 feet, Cast Bronze, Cast Stainless Steel, Edition 15, Price on request

WINDS OF CHANGE
© July 2002 by Chapel

Height 8.5 feet
Cast Bronze, Cast Stainless Steel

Edition 15

Price on request

WINDS OF CHANGE
© November 10, 2001 by Chapel

The events of September 11, 2001 changed things in America. That tragedy altered my view of this country and my place in it. WINDS OF CHANGE was begun months before that awful day, and finished in August, 2001; I thought. The experiences of that week resulted in a transformation of my perceptions and work.

I was scheduled to fly to Phoenix on September 12 to deliver a lecture on “Serendipity” at the Society of Animal Artists annual exhibit. Though initially inclined to cancel, I was finally persuaded to make the trip by car. It was during that 11 hour drive through the shifting static of NPR stations from San Francisco, down the deserted Central Valley, then East into the Arizona night, that I began to realize things were different now. The skies were silent, empty. Virtually no one was on the road but semi rigs. The whole country was stunned. My wife (a psychologist specializing in trauma) was on duty at San Francisco General Hospital, unable to leave in case that city was targeted. Newscasters speculated on the possibility that 40,000 might be dead. Monday I was panicked at the prospect of delivering a speech Thursday; on Wednesday, tomorrow’s lecture was the least of my worries.

The Society of Animal Artists is an international organization of peer selected artists. Many were prevented from attending, most who attended had arrived before the attack. As it turned out we were going to synchronize our work with our world. As artists immortalizing wildlife, we share a concern about environmental issues of all kinds, and thus are sometimes in conflict with our own and other government’s policies. Suddenly our entire environment, including natural, familial, legal, and national, was threatened. We came together, as did Americans everywhere, and found more in common than not. We stepped out of our personas and started the SAA Art Education Fund for local elementary school children. For the first time in my life, as the country began to unify, I felt as if I was an American; as if I belonged here.

It would now be impossible not to change the direction of my own work to reflect this new awareness. The eagle flying alone over an abstract country would cross into a new dimension. Bare, hard bones of steel became wrapped and merged with the Stars and Stripes. The wind itself changed direction and streamed that flag out in support of our living national symbol. The empty space below has been transformed into golden fields of grains and fruit, from “sea to shining sea”, where salmon fight against the current, their offspring rush madly downstream. There are hidden things, still buried. There are visions, hidden among the clouds, and under the veils of high ideals. Some things are smooth, polished, and finished; some are rough, as yet unformed. There are dangers in hidden nets, moldering waste dumps; but most of all a cantilevered balance must be achieved and held, lest all civilization perish.

Two months ago these thoughts would have seemed pretentious? theatrical? grandiose?, but not now.

Not to me.

We have all peered over the edge, into the abyss.