Violence hits home for New York artist.(Chicago Tribune)

NEW YORK _ Mitchell Schorr, a New York artist, watched much of the Sept. 11 catastrophe at the World Trade Center from his parents' midtown Manhattan apartment window.

"I was in the car, coming to pick my father up. I heard a plane fly overhead, and then over the radio Howard Stern said a plane hit the tower. We thought, oh, yeah, that's Howard Stern. But then we drove a few blocks and could see all the smoke, unobstructed, and went back up to the apartment. By that time, the second plane had hit."

When did he decide to put this to canvas?

"I started with my mother's camera. I took photographs of the towers burning because I'd started this series, cutting images from newspapers of scenes of violence from around the world, be it political, monetary or religious. Friends told me it was a bit obsessive, and I'd say no, it's just the news. But it always seemed weird it was all over the world and not here. It's almost like I was keeping a book of what sooner or later would come to us.

"I produced about 20 paintings from these images from bombs in Moscow to troops marching in Palestine. Whenever violence seemed used as a tool."

His work as a whole includes much more pastoral imagery.

"My other series are in contrast to that, beautiful scenes of Cuba, New York City landscapes, scenes from New Mexico, rock `n' roll musicians. I was just painting life, and the violence seemed a part of life.