"ANGERED EAGLE |
Memorial Sculpture in honor of the heroes of United Flight 93 Shanksville, PA 9/11/01 ANGERED EAGLE was created in memory of passengers of United Flight 93 which crashed just outside Shanksville, PA. Alan Beaven was a family member and so we were invited to attend the commemorative ceremony in Shanksville 9/11/02. Just before heading back to our home on Cape Cod, MA, we decided to visit the temporary memorial site to say our last goodbyes. Following our visit, we headed down the hill away from the site, On the way down I spotted Rollock, Inc. a metal scrap yard. As I am a sculptor who works in steel. I was drawn to this place and decided to go in and take a look. I entered the scrap yard with great anticipation and soon learned that most of the scrap iron there came from the local strip-mining industry. I learned that on 9/11/2001 United Flight 93 took its first hit, losing its tail, adjacent to this scrap yard. The fuselage landed forward in an open field; the cockpit separating and landing forward in a wooded area. I had felt that at some point I would be able to use my art to tie things together and come up with something that might say it all. The owner of the scrap yard, Chris Kordell , was kind enough to walk me through his scrap yard and allow me to choose material that I would ultimately use to create the sculpture. The ANGERED EAGLE is standing on a huge drill bit from a strip-mining machine. The rock in the claw of the eagle was picked up hundreds of yards forward of the fuselage in a wooded area where the cockpit came to rest. Alan's watch, wallet and wedding ring were found in that area. Several other huge drill bits entwine to form the rest of the sculpture's base. The vertical cylindrical object on the right side of the sculpture's base is also from the scrap yard and is meant to be a time capsule. It holds sentimental objects as well as scraps from the airplane which had blown out of the trees the day we were there. Del Filardi, S.A.A. |