Last fall, Matt McMullen started work on a giant mural in Alexandria. This year, he had finished work on the wall, along with more than 3,000 miniature copies of it – one for every victim of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Cathy McSweeny wanted to commemorate the events of Sept. 11, 2001, with art. The owner of Bodywave Balneotherapy center in Alexandria, which offers massage, skin care, water therapies and other relaxation services, hired Alexandria artist McMullen to paint an inspirational mural to hang outside the store.
McSweeny hired McMullen last fall, and the mural, called “Spirit Rising,” was completed in May. McMullen operates Propeller Studio in Alexandria, which specializes in sculpture, murals and custom props. The 48-by-78 inch acrylic on plywood mural depicts a woman wearing an American flag, floating skyward with her arms outstretched.
“It was my reaction to the disaster, just an image that came out of my heart,” said McMullen, who also said he wanted to depict “the wounded soul of America floating through the clouds.”
McSweeny is planning on donating the mural to the Pentagon, since right now the mural is outside and exposed to the elements. “I wanted to share [the mural] with the world, not just the neighborhood,” McSweeny said.
The Pentagon has received so much artwork commemorating Sept. 11 that they have set aside a hall where they display different artwork every month. McMullen’s mural was originally going to be on display in that hall for a month, and was later accepted as a permanent donation. McMullen is going to make a reproduction of the mural that McSweeny can hang in the outside of Bodywave once she donates the original to the Pentagon.
McMullen also made 3,014 lithographs of the mural, one for each person who died in the attacks on Sept. 11. He sold the lithographs at an open house at Bodywave on Oct. 5 that McSweeny holds every year in conjunction with Art on the Avenue.
He is donating a portion of the proceeds to The Armed Services YMCA Pentagon Survivor’s Fund, which helps families of 9/11 victims. “The donation is a natural extension of the entire project,” McMullen said. “I wanted to give something back.”
MCSWEENY ADVERTISED the open house by sending out postcards to everyone on the Bodywave mailing list, and said that the mural received many compliments.
“One of my clients who worked at the Pentagon was very insistent. She wanted to be the first one to purchase it,” McSweeny said.
McMullen said that people have had various interpretations of the mural, including thinking that the clouds represented smoke and that the beams of light represented fire, both of which were unintentional.
“The image was more of a general feeling about the spirit of America and the state of the world today, not specifically 9/11,” McMullen said.
On Sept. 11, McMullen was in his studio, which is five miles from the Pentagon, and could see the smoke. “I didn’t hear it per se, I just felt it,” he said.
McMullen also has a friend who worked close to where the blast occurred in the Pentagon. “It just gave more of a personal impression of how ugly it was in there,” McMullen said. “You only hear so much about it by watching the news...It just seems to sink in deeper when you hear [someone’s] reaction to being there in person.”
Greg Reiter, the Web designer for the mural’s Web site, also had personal experience with Sept. 11. McMullen met him through McSweeny, as he also designed the Bodywave website. Reiter was in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001 and shares his personal story on the website.
“He just felt it was a story that needed to be told,” McMullen said. “I think it’s an amazing story. I don’t know many people who were that close to [the events of 9/11].”
McMullen said he wants the mural to impart an overall message of hope.
“I was trying to impart the spirit of the hope that we have to hold on to, or everything falls apart,” McMullen said.