By DAVID SALTONSTALL
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF
One painting shows a tiny figure – marked simply “Dad” – standing atop a brilliant, multicolored rainbow.
In another, a 4-year-old girl scrawled, “I remember riding on Daddy’s shoulders.” Another offered a sailboat and the hope that dad’s spirit may “sail among the angels.”
They are the art and memories of children who lost loved ones in the Sept. 11 attacks, part of a powerful new exhibit making its public debut at the American Museum of Natural History.
The artwork is by turns inspiring and wrenching.
One of the artists was 2-year-old Andrew Cappers, who had no problem yesterday finding his panel – a single orange handprint next to the word “Daddy” and a colorful smirch of fingerpaint.
It was right next to a panel by his 5-year-old brother, Alex, who drew an ambulance and the words, “We miss you, Daddy.” The boys’ father, James Christopher Cappers, 33, died in the north tower, where he worked for Marsh & McLennan, a financial services firm.
“I think it was good for them,” said the boys’ mother, Kathleen, who said they drew the pictures last Sept. 11 after attending ceremonies marking the second anniversary of the attacks. “They were able to do what they wanted to do, which is to paint and get messy and be little boys.”
The paintings cover seven canvases – each with 25 1-square-foot panels painted by children ages 2 to 17 – that will hang through May in a ground-floor reception area of the museum.
The project is the brainchild of Ali Millard, 16, who decided that art often speaks louder than words when it comes to matters of the heart, especially for children.
“You lose someone, you do have to remember the good stuff,” said Millard, who may be the first person with bright pink hair ever to share a stage with Mayor Bloomberg. “And I feel like a lot of kids did that.”
Millard speaks from experience. Her stepfather was Neil Levin, the former Port Authority chief who died along with 2,748 others in the attacks. Her mother is Christy Ferer, Mayor Bloomberg’s liaison to families of the attacks.
Part of the exhibit, coordinated by the 92nd St. Y in Manhattan, already has been to the Middle East, where U.S. troops got a sneak peak. The full show eventually will travel to schools, art centers and museums nationwide.
“Sometimes, in the face of sorrow, words really do fail us,” said Bloomberg, who helped open the exhibit. “But visual expression does not.”
Originally published on February 24, 2004
