Anonymous Report This Comment Date: January 10, 2005 10:11PM
Here's an article about it. The ice scuplture was done by a women from Canada
following 9/11. Guess Canadians aren't so bad afterall "eh?"
There is a price to helping to heal the world's pain.
You relive that pain when, in thanking you, people tell you stories of exactly
what losses you've helped them overcome.
That's especially true if, like Darlene Racicot who created an ice sculpture of
an angel comforting an exhausted New York firefighter holding the American flag
post Sept. 11, you have the imagination and compassion to put yourself in their
shoes.
"We were only imagining what their pain was like before," Racicot said
Monday.
"Now we've heard from the families, ordinary people like us, who were left
behind. There's a lot of pain and I'm certainly feeling it now."
After receiving hundreds of e-mails from people around the world, including many
touched directly by the tragedy, Racicot and her husband Rick know in detail the
dimensions of the loss she tried to console, through her choice of sculpture for
the recent South Porcupine-Porcupine Winter Carnival.
Working steadily at replying to the outpouring of emotion, in the three days
since The Daily Press covered the beginning of the phenomena and published her
e-mail address with her permission, Racicot has been left sleepless and wrung
out.
"Some I can just send a brief thank you to," she explained.
"To others you have to say more " their stories bring tears to your
eyes. You have to think of what to say in response to things like that.
"They all say "thank you,' say how the image helped them to heal and
they say it so beautifully."
As much as that's appreciated by Racicot, it tears her heart and her empathic
nature.
She has replied to hundreds of e-mails already, with hundreds to go, while
people are cued up on the Internet to get through to her. Rick estimates another
70 e-mails came in Monday by 5 p.m.
The backlog grows despite his wife wearing herself thin to reply to them all.
People may have to expect longer waits for replies as her family insists she
take care of herself first.
Another thing straining Racicot's tear ducts is the enormity of the praise she
is receiving.
"I'm so overwhelmed," she said. "One e-mail read, "Many
people came to our aid, but you helped us rise above it.' To me it's a bit much
" I'm just me. I don't feel deserving " there are others that gave so
much more."
Regardless, as Susan Blanch, producer with news radio station WCCO in
Minneapolis, Minn., told Racicot, "You don't have any idea the impact
you've made here."
Blanch has arranged an interview with Racicot on their Tim Russell Show at 10:40
a.m. today and was impressed with the South Porcupine resident's compassion in
their first phone contact.
"She started crying as we talked about people's reactions and I'm going to
start crying just thinking about it," Blanch said, Monday. "It was so
sweet " she's such a neat lady."
In another display of character, Racicot gave Blanch the number of the artist
who's painting of two smaller angels kneeling at the firefighter's knees, had
been digitally modified to a new pose in the e-mailed image Racicot based her
sculpture on.
The artist, Gray Lineback (
[email protected]) also contacted Racicot along
with people from Australia, Sweden, England, Japan, Israel as well as from
across Canada and the United States.
Racicot hopes Lineback will be interviewed at the same time, in a conference
call.
The second, supercharged stage of Racicot's fame began at 7 a.m. Saturday,
shortly after the Daily Press hit the stands.
Her husband handed her the paper and the phone at the same time, before she was
fully awake.
"This amazing lady, a poet from New Mexico with her own Web site, was
screaming excitedly on the phone, "I've found you! I've found you!'"
Known online as Sky, she wanted permission to start pages on Racicot's
sculpture, titled From Fire to Ice. The results can be seen online at
s
7;yangel@golden
109;oon.org.
They include the text of Saturday's Daily Press article, phone and e-mail
conversations with Racicot on topics like construction techniques and additional
images with people to give a sense of the sculpture large scale, which shocked
Sky.
The site closes with the type of words Racicot has difficulty associating with
herself, but represent American feelings nonetheless.
"I know all our hearts have been touched by an angel " Darlene, you
are that angel, Sky."
"She's on a mission," Racicot said. "She said, "I'll leave
no stone unturned until everyone in the world has seen this picture.' There's a
button on one page for people who want to e-mail me."
Sky will have lots of help in spreading the image.
Racicot has responded to a steady stream of e-mails requesting permission to
post the image and others saying it's already done.
The sculpture image is also on www.firehouse.com, and can be downloaded from The
Daily Press site as "wallpaper," for computer desktops.
Courtesy Timmins Press - Ontario
Wallpaper Download
1024x768 - 800x600
Racicot places no limit on postings, but is absolutely firm that any money made
from the image will go to Sept. 11 relief.
A company contacted her Monday for permission to produce lapel pins with the
image. Racicot is putting all licensing decisions on hold, until she can turn
them over to trusted relatives in western Canada who have experience in
charitable licensing.
Racicot is still trying to take it all in.
"Susan (Blanch) told me it's because North Americans hear of bombings
overseas, but don't really associate it with home. There are no monuments to
those kinds of occurrences and mine is the first."
"I am the flag,' an online tribute to the American flag, complete with
images of it being raised on the moon, Iwo Jima and Ground Zero.
The site now ends with Racicot's sculpture. Between a waving American and
Canadian flag, is a message reading "America thanks you. You have touched
our hearts. Sculpture created by Darlene Racicot, Timmins, Ontario, Canada.'
"I saw that and said, "My God! That's our flag up their beside theirs,
on a Web page dedicated to the American flag,'" said a touched and
overwhelmed Racicot.
"It's a little too much for me," she said of the licensing requests
and the e-mails that demand an answer through their poignancy. "Everything
is coming a bit too fast."
dar Report This Comment Date: August 27, 2005 09:00PM
Just to clarify things, I created that sculpture in Feb.2002. 5 months after
Sept 11th. I am not an artist, I don't paint, sculpt or do anything else but put
our abundance of snow to good use every winter. I am a nurses aide working in
palliative care. I am a wife and a mom who lives a simple ordinary life,in a
small town in Northern Ontario,Canada. I didn't have much to give those people
in their time of need, so I gave what I could. That was four years ago,I have
refused all licening of the image (which by the way is protected by copy right
and I would appreciate it if it was posted along with picture displayed on this
site) and neither myself nor any one eles has profited from this in any way,
shape or form. I didn't make it for recognition, money or to boost my carreer as
a sculptor(understanbly since that is not my profession) as some ignorant people
out there may think. I made it from my heart my "agenda" was to
simply send a photo to the New York FireFighter that inspired the sculpture to
let him know there were people out there that were thinking of and praying for
them. I chose him because I didn't know a single American citizen. I poured my
heart and soul, every ounce of energy,and a lot of tears into making that, for
300 hours over 5 weeks, shoveling and chopping away at 6 dump trucks worth of
snow bank in -35C temps without the windchill factor. I quit my job devoted 6
months to answering over 300 thousand letters from all over the world from
people who suffered terribly from that day and continue to suffer,all of them
were touched in some way by the sculpture. Many of them shared thier experinces
and their pain with me. I wasn't obligated to listen to or reply to these people
but I did because it was the right theing to do. The IAFF brought me to the NYC
fire fighters memorial in Oct.2002. It was the greatest honor and most humbling
experience of my life. I witnessed the sadness and grief I watched the pain and
tears on the faces of 70 thousand grown men of 343 families and little children
without there fathers. I am very much aware of the people who were murdered that
day. I have devoted the last four years of my life, to having this sculpture
made into a permant bronze and marble monument honoring those hero's. There are
some of us out there that still live with morals and values people who genuinly
care about humanity. The negativity of Sept.11 should be laid to rest and the
positive is what should be remembered. Thank you to who ever has stood up for me
in the above email. To the others who were quick to pass judgement,Im not a
crazy liberal nor a whacko conservative and I pray everyday for those who died .
I am really sorry that you refer to it as "shit" but unfortunately
that was all I had to give in the aftermath. The way I see it its better to have
given all that I could than nothing at all. www.neverforget.ca