SOURCE: Shaw-Eagle, Joanna. “Healing with Creative Works: Artists Try to ‘Make Sense’ of What They Have Witnessed.” Washington Times (23 February 2002): D5.

In the following essay, Shaw-Eagle combines several brief personal vignettes by contemporary artists that reflect the impact of the September 11 attacks on their lives and works.

New Yorker Carmen Einfinger breathed dust and smelled odors from ground zero long after September 11. Her neighborhood was sealed off for a week. “During the disaster, I created works like ‘Explosion’ from memory and photographs. I tried to make sense of what I personally witnessed,” she says.

The artist put acrylic, felt and stitching on canvas to show five patterned figures running from the burning World Trade Center towers. The design and primary colors used for the fire and pell-mell running create a powerful image.

Miss Einfinger says the work stems from the primal therapy she undertook. Reared in Brazil by...