VOA标准英语2011--Artist Pieces Life Back Together After K

Artist Pieces Life Back Together After Katrina

Six years ago, on August 29, Hurricane Katrina devastated¹ communities along the Gulf² of Mexico. Images of New Orleans spread around the world, but east of the Louisiana border, much of the Mississippi coast was also wiped out.
In the past few years, towns have been rebuilding. Mississippi artist Lori Gordon took pieces from the debris³ and built a new home and a new life.
Losing everything
In a small art gallery in the seaside village of Bay St. Louis, Gordon is drilling a piece of wood to mount⁴ a new piece of art. Her drill is one of the few things she has from before Hurricane Katrina. When she and her husband evacuated⁵ their home near the water, they boarded up the house. Her husband took the drill so he could remove the wood from the windows when they returned. But there was nothing to come back to.
"Hurricane Katrina hit, the house went, the studio went, even the tree house didn’t quite make it,"Gordon says, "and of course all of my art supplies and tools went with that."
As did 30 years worth of her art that had been in the studio.
"I lost all that, but what was really hard at the time was not only not having a place to live, but not having a place to work and not having any tools to work with," Gordon says. "With what happened, the loss of home, the loss of community, which was really tough. And the only way I’ve ever had has been my art."
Emotional survival⁶
Before Katrina, Gordon mostly painted landscapes of the land and water around her. Her focus changed with Katrina. She says art became emotional survival.
"I started digging through the rubble⁷ where my house had been and pulling out bits of broken furniture and broken dishes. Anything I could find. It’s really weird⁸, when you’ve lost everything, a broken coffee cup can take on really significant meaning."
Once Gordon discovered some pieces of debris had meaning, she knew she was onto something.
"So I just started pulling all that stuff together and, because I was really feeling pretty crazy, I started gluing it together any way I could, making mixed media pieces."
Gordon was not the only local artist set adrift by the hurricane. Jenise McCardell, a gallery owner who works in clay, also lost her studio. After the storm, she and her husband purchased an undamaged building in town and opened a door to hope.
"So then there were quite a group of artists, 10 artists that needed a place to work and create their art," McCardell says. "Some were homeless, some had nowhere to work, so we began a coop art gallery here at 220."
Transformation⁹
It became Gallery 220, named after the street address. In a town known for its artists, they found strength in each other’s company. Artists from other states heard about the gallery and sent tools, clay, paint and canvas¹⁰.
"We put up tables," McCardell says. "This is where we worked because we had nowhere else. Lori had nothing, you know, was living in a tent."
Gordon was surprised to see her Katrina pieces sell quickly. Many of the buyers were volunteers who came from all over the country to help after the disaster.
In the process, she began to see her work in a new way.
“I was able to take bits and pieces of all that negative stuff, and put them together and transform them not only into something I found beautiful and life-affirming," Gordon says. "But that made me some money, which was very significant at that point in time.”
Margaret Woodward, who is still repairing damage to her home in nearby Long Beach, owns several pieces of the Katrina Collection.
“Lori made the impossible seem possible and not only possible but beautiful again, there was very little that was pretty after the storm," says Woodward. "It was just tragic¹¹.”
Gordon, who now shows her work across the country, still works at the artists’ co-op two days a week.
“You don’t have to have experienced a Katrina to understand what loss is," she says. "Whether it’s the loss of your community, whether it’s much more singular and personal, like a divorce, we all have to do the same things. We have to pick up the broken pieces and put them back together in a way that makes sense, and in a way that will bring happiness and joy back to our lives.”

1 devastated   

v.彻底破坏( devastate的过去式和过去分词)；摧毁；毁灭；在感情上（精神上、财务上等）压垮adj.毁坏的；极为震惊的

参考例句：

• The bomb devastated much of the old part of the city. 这颗炸弹炸毁了旧城的一大片地方。
• His family is absolutely devastated. 他的一家感到极为震惊。

2 gulf   

n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂

参考例句：

• The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
• There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。

3 debris   

n.瓦砾堆，废墟，碎片

参考例句：

• After the bombing there was a lot of debris everywhere.轰炸之后到处瓦砾成堆。
• Bacteria sticks to food debris in the teeth,causing decay.细菌附着在牙缝中的食物残渣上，导致蛀牙。

4 mount   

n.山峰，乘用马，框，衬纸；vi.增长，骑上（马）；vt.提升，爬上，装备

参考例句：

• Their debts continued to mount up.他们的债务不断增加。
• She is the first woman who steps on the top of Mount Jolmo Lungma.她是第一个登上珠穆朗玛峰的女人。

5 evacuated   

撤退者的

参考例句：

• Police evacuated nearby buildings. 警方已将附近大楼的居民疏散。
• The fireman evacuated the guests from the burning hotel. 消防队员把客人们从燃烧着的旅馆中撤出来。

6 survival   

n.留住生命，生存，残存，幸存者

参考例句：

• The doctor told my wife I had a fifty-fifty chance of survival.医生告诉我的妻子，说我活下去的可能性只有50%。
• The old man was a survival of a past age.这位老人是上一代的遗老。

7 rubble   

n.（一堆）碎石，瓦砾

参考例句：

• After the earthquake,it took months to clean up the rubble.地震后，花了数月才清理完瓦砾。
• After the war many cities were full of rubble.战后许多城市到处可见颓垣残壁。

8 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

9 transformation   

n.变化；改造；转变

参考例句：

• Going to college brought about a dramatic transformation in her outlook.上大学使她的观念发生了巨大的变化。
• He was struggling to make the transformation from single man to responsible husband.他正在努力使自己由单身汉变为可靠的丈夫。

10 canvas   

n.粗帆布，一块油画布

参考例句：

• The times that people used canvas boat have become history.人们用帆船的时代已成为历史。
• Smith painted an oil painting on the canvas.史密斯在画布上画了一幅油画。

11 tragic   

adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的

参考例句：

• The effect of the pollution on the beaches is absolutely tragic.污染海滩后果可悲。
• Charles was a man doomed to tragic issues.查理是个注定不得善终的人。