September 11th Attacks Foretold in 1989 Alex Gray Painting
I love the way his mind works, including the name choice Gray, which is not his birth name. He selected it as a representation of an artist’s (his) capacity to unify seeming opposites.
He created GAIA after he had a vision concerning “The world soul” in 1989.
The memory of the world trade center attacks is still very potent for me, which is why I noticed this. You see, I spent much of September 11th, 2001, at 50 Broad St in NYC, and spent the weeks that followed gazing at the somber new skyline. I remember the billowing smokestacks. I remember the floating, falling, burning paper and the way the ash covered the street like snow.
During that phase of my life, I lived in West New York, NJ, and took the Weehawken ferry into downtown Manhattan to and from work each day. For context, I’ll share just a bit of what that day was like for me. The following passage is from a book I will release in late September of this year (2019).
Before opening the front door of the lobby into the gray haze, I removed both socks. I used one to cover my mouth/nose and the other to cover my eyes. Visibility was low, but we could see approximately 15 feet by the time we attempted to flee for safety, during which I would cover my eyes for 8–10 foot stretches to avoid being blinded by airborne particulate as we made our way to South Street Seaport. On normal days, I would leave my office and head South and West, but that wasn’t a good idea this day.
From where I lived in NJ, I had a view of the city that was very similar to the right side of this painting, so I can tell you that what Alex Gray painted looked nearly identical to Downtown NYC during the aftermath of 9/11. The twin towers were gone and, though I do not think Alex could understand what he saw at that time, the smoke coming from the smokestacks in the painting (very close to WTC location) looks eerily similar to the way the smoke billowing from the site looked, from that perspective, in those days.
Notice the two large jets in the sky on the right side of this painting? Exactly two. If you see anything you believe is significant on the left side of the painting, please point it out in the comments.
If you enjoyed this article, please check out one or two of my others. Some of them are not as obvious, but even more profound:
