” I see water…and buildings….oh my God!”
” Her last phone call from the World Trade Center building…”
“Thousands are pronounced dead….”

If words could truly paint a picture, artist Justine Wollaston’s collage entitled “Portrait of a Nation” would paint a mural that would go on for eternity.

Laced with more than 5,000 spoken quotes, lyrics and images, Wollaston’s piece is more than just art that resembles the U.S. flag, it’s a history log of the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

The collage is on display in the basement of the Hughes-Trigg Student Center.

“This collage was based on my need to express and explain what was happening to my students,” Wollaston said. “I, too, was having a hard time dealing with [the Sept. 11 attacks].”

The collage began as a way for Wollaston, an SMU alumna, to deal with her own emotions, she said.

She turned to her passion of creating things as a way of releasing what she felt inside. The montage of words that color Wollaston’s black and white piece were pulled from newspapers such as The New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Washington Post and The Dallas Morning News. It took her three weeks to complete the collage.

The words uttered after the attacks helped Wallaston to best voice how she truly felt.

“By the time I was finished with the collage, I had exercised my anger,” she said. “I was at a sense of peace.”

The original work, which stands as big as a residence hall bulletin board, conveys the same powerful message. The 8-feet-high by 18-feet-wide replica displays the pain of the nation on Sept. 11.

After piecing the replica together in the basement of Hughes-Trigg, the builders all stood silent, taking in the message emitted from Wollaston’s work, said John Gibson, director of creative services.

“The art comes purely from reality. It covers the emotion of the moment very well,” he said.

Wollaston becomes emotional when asked to explain her work. Her descriptions are vivid and passionate, moving back time to the early hours of the attacks.

“The stars on the piece are in disarray, symbolizing how we as a nation felt during and after the attacks,” Wollaston said.

Wollaston notes that the darker set of stripes in her work stand for the red stripes on the American flag. Look closer, she says, and one will find that the dark stripes are actually pictures of the firemen who hung the flag over the wall at the Pentagon in Washington D.C.

The white stripes are pictures of missing person fliers that were hung in New York by families hoping to find their love ones.

In the lower right-hand corner Wollaston added a red, white and blue ribbon, the only color on the entire piece which she says demonstrates the nation’s unity.

“America’s going to do whatever needs to be done to reach out and help our country pull through,” she said.

Faculty, staff and students responded well to the collage. Martha Coniglio, assistant vice president for university events, supports Wollaston’s collage.

“I think it was good to have something on campus that students could go to and reflect with,” Coniglio said. “Writing their feelings down in the books by the collage is one way students can express their feelings.”

And that’s exactly what many people have done. Around the collage, more words expressing current thoughts and feelings are written down in books and on plain paper. They range from comments on the piece to hopeful wishes for the future.

“It’s a reminder,” said sophomore political science major Carl Dorvil. “It’s really sad.”

Dorvil pointed to quotes in the piece such as “If I never see you again, I love you” and “Thousand feared dead” stood out to him and took him back to when he visited Ground Zero earlier this year.

The piece moved sophomore advertising major Jamie Zorbanos.

“I think it will bring tears to people’s eyes,” she said. “This is stuff that actually happened. [Wollaston] did a good job.”

The piece affected senior Shitattin Makor in a positive way and provided a new way to look at the future.

“Hope. I think it makes us aware of the things that are going in the world,” she said. “This piece brings it home.”

When asked what effect she wanted to evoke with her work, Wollaston replied assuredly.

“I want people to be shoulder-to-shoulder viewing this,” she said. “These words bring us in touch with how we were feeling. These words are burnt upon us.”

“Portrait of the Nation” is on display in the basement of the Hughes-Trigg Student Center through the end of the week.