A Safe Haven
Pasatiempo, The New Mexican’s Weekly Magazine of Arts, Entertainment and Culture
November 9 - 15, 2001
By Teri Thomson Randall For the New Mexican

Painter Teressa Valla was the first to arrive in Santa Fe on Oct. 22. “I felt relief as soon as I got off the plane,” she said.

Valla watched the World Trade Center burn from the roof of her apartment near the Museum of Natural History in upper Manhattan. Since the attacks, she said, she has been surrounded by the constant sounds of sirens, the acrid smell, the soberness of the city and a heavy sadness. At first she felt numb and did everything she could to stay in control, she said. But grief eventually overcame her. Seven firemen from her local fire station had been killed. “I found myself crying a lot, vacillating,” she recalled during a recent interview at the institute.

Valla had been selected to represent the United States at the Biennale Internazionale Dell’Arte Contemporaneo in Florence, Italy, in December 2001, but she began to doubt whether she would be able to complete the work in time for the exhibit. Material concerns weighed heavily as well. As an artist-in-residence for the New York public schools, her income had been drastically reduced after the attacks.

A turning point came last weekend, when she joined John Fischer and Vincent Pomilio, two other New York artists in the Emergency Residency Program, in an overnight trip to Walter De Maria’s installation The Lightning Field, in southwest New Mexico.

“I felt like I was going into the interior of the world,” Valla said. “It brought me back to my spirit. Even though there was no lightning, the place ignites your own lighting. The most important thing is that I have started again.”

Valla is now exploring the theme of the hero in her work, particularly the firemen and the other rescue workers.

Fischer’s home and studio were located 3 1/2 blocks from Ground Zero, in a basement apartment on Warren Street. When the first plane hit, he was having breakfast at a local restaurant.

“You see it but you can’t compute it, you can’t process it,” Fischer said during a recent interview. “Not understanding the magnitude, I said to myself. ’They’ll fix it.’“