News article about Jani's
911 Angel
911 Angel
| My 911 Angel News Article. The article was written on 9-11-2004 by news reporter Seana K. Magee of the Kyodo News Service |
| Tourists seek out 9-11 ceremony experience |
| By Seana K. Magee - (Seana McGee interviewed Jani in front of St. Paul Chapel - across from Ground Zero") |
| NEW YORK, Sept. 11 Kyodo, Japan - Hundreds of tourists were among onlookers Saturday at the third anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center's Twin Towers. |
| Many stood outside wire fences, which were decorated with flags, flowers, messages, pictures and candles, and strained to watch as family members of the deceased descended down a ramp to place mementos at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan. |
| As parents and grandparents of the victims read out all 2,749 names, including two dozen Japanese, during a ceremony that lasted over three hours, some cried, some prayed and others seemed to seek refuge in silence. |
| While many tourists came to the site alone or even in groups just to better reflect upon the profound event, others, like Jani Wall, an artist, went so far as to present a painting that she made to the New York Fire Department No. 10, which is the closest station to Ground Zero. |
| Wall and her husband, Doug, left their home in Atlanta to make their first trip to Ground Zero in November 2001. |
| As a creative person, Jani was struck one day at work by a drawing of an angel that she found at work. She was inspired by the image of that figure and incorporated aspects of what she had seen firsthand in the rubble to create a picture in her mind. |
| It was not until more than a year that she was finally able to take up her brush and it took her another six months to create her painting that she eventually called ''9/11 Angel.'' |
| The final image is of an angel who is comforting a firefighter as the towers are collapsing in the background. Through the long process involved in getting her vision on canvas, Wall realized the importance of tapping into spirituality during times of trouble. |
| ''We need spirituality to get through this,'' the 58-year-old said. ''The comfort we get from spirituality is there if we just let it be there with us.'' |