10   “The desire to help”          2001          
Paper, ink               11 x 8 1/2”     

I wrote this letter about a week after September 11.   Like most people I knew in the arts, I wanted to help, but didn’t know how.   Then it struck me.   “I’m a creative guy,” I thought, “I could help come up with potential terrorist scenarios.”   This made me very happy, it was something I could do, and it would be very useful.

Initially, I sent it to Jessica Stern, formerly of the National Security Council and at that point a professor at Harvard.   I found her email address online and sent it off.   Hers was the best email address I could find for someone who was in a position to pass this idea along.

A week or so later, Tom Ridge was appointed director of Homeland Security and I emailed it to him c/o the governor’s office while President Bush was still making the announcement.   Within an hour, I received an email back, asking for my resume, and I promptly forwarded that.   If the letter and resume were forwarded to anyone, I can only imagine the head-scratching that resulted faced with my resume:   solo shows, group shows, museum collections, reviews, not the typical resume to arrive in a governmental office.

A couple of months after I sent this letter off, the Homeland Security office announced that they were enlisting the assistance of Hollywood screenwriters to help envision possible terrorist attacks.   Friends called and said they stole my idea, but it seemed like such a simple and obvious idea, that I could never truly embrace the notion that my letter had resonated enough to be the genesis for their move. Regardless, I’m sad I didn’t get to be of assistance.