“New York City Dust, A Love Story”

In 1999, we hired Rima. She was from Ukraine and had a PhD in Chemistry. She also cleaned Richard Serra’s Tribeca loft.

We worked hard. We played hard. 70-to-80-hour workweeks. Hosting Saturday night dinners with friends till 1am. Then clubs called “Chaos” and “Spy” till 4am. New York City was awakening from a recession to the digital revolution of Silicon Alley. In the blast of this energy, I conceived a series of word paintings where each one is made by an accumulation of dust. The first formed the words: “OVER STIMULATED.”

At a dinner party, I took it down from its perch in our loft to show the gang. “Cool. Crazily fragile. Impractical.” they said. The next morning, I looked at it again, Yes! It’s going to work.

That evening, I came home to see the canvasboard wiped clean. Obviously by Rima’s feather duster. I looked down. Two-inch tall, clear plastic Helvetica letters lay scattered on the floor. “Rima’s freaked out by it,” I’m told. She’s so sorry and didn’t realize. I reassemble the accumulation and return it to the resting place. I put a sign next to it. “Please be careful. It’s art.”

Six months later, we move from the second floor to the top and fifth floor in the same walk-up building at 83 Warren Street, one block below Chambers Street. One of the last things moved is the accumulation. Yes, it is fragile. But I discover a shelf inside a closet with white bifold doors. The accumulation fits there perfectly. I install a new sign: “Please be careful. It’s Art!”

Two weeks later, I walk in to see the clear, plastic Helvetica letters: “an O, V, S and D” poking out from the bottom of the closet’s bifold doors. I pull the doors open. The warning sign’s on the floor facedown. One corner of the canvasboard looked like it had hit the dark red tile floor. I shake my head in disbelief. I reassemble the piece, then place a new, larger warning sign on the shelf which read: “ART, PLEASE DO NOT BUMP OR MOVE!”

A year later, mid-August, 2001, post-Rima, eight of us are on a ferry bound for Liberty State Park to attend a Radiohead concert. The Taliban had just blown up the Buddhist sculptures in Afghanistan. We’re pointing out what the Taliban would blow up here. “Clearly the Statue of Liberty.” “The Twin Towers.” “And these ferries, if they want to kill 10,000 hipsters.”

Three weeks later, I’m in the apartment to feed my cat, Cleo, who had refused to leave, as we were evacuated and living at the Mercer Hotel in Soho. Cleo rubs her head against my leg, purring. She missed me greatly. Her soft black fur on my bare white calf. I looked at the dust from the Towers at the bottom of a slightly open window. Stunned and quiet, I walk back to the closet and open the bifold doors.

We lived three blocks North of the Site. The accumulation comprised a perfect collection of dust. I pulled it out and walked to the window. I took a large pinch of the Towers’ dust from the bottom of the windowsill. Saying a prayer, I sprinkled it on the canvasboard. I thought of the man with the black pants and white dress shirt that I saw falling headfirst from the North Tower while I was talking on the phone with my Father.

11 September 2001.