Artistic Freedom Maine painters turn their emotional reactons to Sept. 11 into works of art

Five months ago, Orono artist Ed Nadeau was searching for crows to photograph for a series of paintings he did on the topic. The assistant professor of art was in a field adjacent to the University of Maine campus when he came upon a natural phenomenon welling up from the ground that has since helped summarize his creative reaction to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

A whirlpool that formed in a small stream caught Nadeau’s attention. He took a picture, then turned the image into a huge, mesmerizing swirl of colors. Called simply “Whirlpool,” the oil on linen painting is 60 inches by 72 inches and will hang at Carnegie Hall at UM during a faculty art show that started Sept. 9. The painting is being offered at the show courtesy of Clark Gallery.

“It’s really in your face,” said Nadeau of a painting that draws the observer into its cyclonic energy.

The swirling masses of greens, blues, whites and silver hues “seem to be a reflection of some aspect of my personal life,” Nadeau said

In a bigger picture, the image symbolizes, “other things stirred up and things moving around,” since Sept. 11, 2001, according to Nadeau.

Like many in Maine, Nadeau said he felt somewhat detached from the immediate impact of the awful events of Sept. 11, 2001. He didn’t lose any friends or relatives and was 800 miles away from the World Trade Center when it was destroyed. “I’m sure there are artists in New York who are doing more World Trade Center kinds of things,” Nadeau said. After all, 17 artists lived on the top floor of the World Trade Center. Two were killed and a lot of artwork was lost.

“Nine-eleven has affected me, but more in a subconscious way,” the art professor said.

“I’m not finding specific images of the twin towers or dead people or firemen” to paint, he said.

Yet when he saw the whirlpool on a quiet spring day, Nadeau took action. “Things were stirred up, not necessarily in a negative way.” The whirlpool symbolized, “flowing and moving on to things and maybe digesting things of the past,” according to Nadeau. It was a link between coping with a terrible event and gathering strength to move on.

“I had to paint the damn thing and that was it,” Nadeau said.