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"My
Dad's Gun
Collection";
2002-present (work in
progress);
glazed
porcelain;
dimensions
vary
There is a moment before
or just at the first
awareness of an occurrence
of violence where the
brutal outcome can be
known or imagined.
It’s an instant of
stillness, suspension,
where nothing has yet
happened but dread sets
in. Some of the film
loops, photographs, and
sculptures I have made
imply this quiet moment or
else they imply possible
violence but they never
cross the line into action
and so remain innocent.
The lacy filigreed gun
sculptures I have been
making out of sugar or
porcelain function in a
similar way, as they lay
prettily inert in their
cases.
These sculptures also
embody a basic ambivalence
toward guns that is
particularly American,
though not specific to
America. (A friend who had
grown up in Lebanon during
the 70’s looked at one of
the small caliber sugar
handguns I’d sculpted out
of sugar and expressed a
similar casual view of
them as he said that Oh
yes, his mom had one just
like that that when he was
young that he saw her put
in her purse whenever she
went out at night. I
asked him if he knew about
the gun, if he knew what
kind it was, relvolver or
pistol, etc. but he’d been
a child when he saw her
putting it into her
handbag and so he simply
accepted its
presence. It wasn’t
something she talked about
but with his child’s
openness he accepted it as
something she needed to
take with her without
worrying about the
implications of why she
would need a gun.)
The mixed message sent by
a dangerous object like a
gun being made in a
fragile material like
sugar or porcelain is a
reflection of my own mixed
feelings of desire and
nostalgia and apprehension
toward guns.
“My Dad’s Gun
Collection” (a work in
progress) is a piece I
started working on after a
few years of making other
gun sculptures from sugar
and porcelain. After
all, it’s the memory of
seeing one of my dad’s
guns when I was very young
that prompted me to start
making guns in the first
place. I’d already
been working with delicate
materials to make
sculpture and the
whiteness of the sugar and
porcelain is inherent to
those materials—lending
whatever I made from them
an ethereal feel. I
was thinking about guns in
general at the time
(shootings were in the
news a lot right about
then) and then I started
thinking about how I was
fascinated with my dad’s
guns when I was a child.
The gun sculptures I make
are lacy, white, and light
- exactly opposite in
appearance to the pistol
my brother found hidden in
Mom and Dad’s bedroom one
afternoon.
The guns were around, I’d
heard a little about them,
knew they were dangerous,
but I rarely saw
one. I knew there
were hunting rifles my
father kept but the more
compelling ones were the
handguns that we had been
told were very dangerous
and that were kept hidden
from us children.
Despite Dad’s good
intentions of keeping the
handgun they had for
protection tucked away in
my parent’s bedroom, my
younger brother, who
confessed as a grown-up to
being a snoop who
periodically searched my
parents drawers, found
it. I was sitting
that afternoon on the
couch that was at the
bottom of the stairway,
probably watching cartoons
on the television, though
what I was actually doing
escapes me. My
brother came walking
slowly down the stairs
balancing in his
outstretched hands a
pistol---it looked huge in
his hands, heavy, and the
metal was so black that it
seemed to absorb the
light. He was very young,
perhaps 4 or 5 and I was 2
years older. I
watched in silent
fascination as he
descended the stairs
taking each step carefully
and he glanced up at me
and said “Look what I
found.” I remember sitting
stunned on the couch and
calling my mother, and I
think the tone of my voice
let her know she should
come quickly. She
came from the kitchen and
promptly took it
away. My brother
probably joined me on the
couch then to watch
cartoons. For years
after that the pistol was
a topic of conversation
and together my brother
and I would go to my
parent’s bedroom and look
everywhere for it, though
the guns were better
hidden after that and we
never found it
again.
Strangely, my brother’s
knack for finding the guns
hidden in my parent’s
house still lingers.
A few years ago we were
all home for a summer
holiday with our own
children and
families. My brother
happened to open a drawer
next to the easy chair in
the living room and there
was one of Dad’s pistols
he’d forgotten to put away
before the grandchildren
arrived, lying
quietly. Without
much fanfare he took it
out and asked Dad to put
it away and that was the
end of it. We
still have the acceptance
of the gun’s presence we
developed as children.
After I started sculpting
the guns I eventually had
to broach the topic with
my parents because of
course my father
especially was quite aware
that the gun imagery
probably has something to
do with his own guns and
he alluded to
this—eventually opening
the door to more stories
about them being told (as
well as there being more
arguments between us about
the politics of gun
control in the U.S.
We can agree on some
things but others seem to
set us at opposite ends of
the spectrum). I
ended up telling them how
the time I saw the
forbidden handgun in my
brother’s hands had stayed
with me and prompted some
of my work. My Mom
then told a story of how
when we were very young,
whenever my Dad went away
on business trips, she
slept with a gun under her
pillow for
protection. One
night she woke up from a
nightmare about “robbers”
as she called them and
thought she saw someone
standing at the end of her
bed. As she was
reaching for the gun, the
image faded as she fully
awakened and she realized
the intruder was just the
remnants of her
dream. She said she
never slept with a gun
under the pillow again
because we children
wandered into her bedroom
at night sometimes and she
didn’t want to wake up
confusedly from a deep
sleep and reach for the
gun when her children were
in the room.
I called my father a while
ago and asked him to give
me a list of the guns he
owns-I wasn’t sure how
many or what types he
had. He sent me a
list and I saw that there
are 14 in all and it’s a
collection reflects the
various meanings and uses
a gun has in American
culture. The rifles
and shotguns are mostly
for hunting while the
handguns reflect a fear of
an intruder or danger on
the street-these were
purchased for protection.
One or two guns are
probably simply
interesting models or
collector’s items.
I’ve made 12 of the pieces
from his collection so far
and have displayed them
laying in a case-the
whiteness and silence of
the sculptures take them
away from their
potentially violent
origins. As I work
on this piece I indulge my
fascination with the guns
and the mystery they hold
for me as objects that I
was never allowed to touch
when I was young.
The moment of stillness
that occurs before an act
of violence is reflected
in the sculptures
themselves as it exists in
the memory of the gun in
my brother’s hands-it is
drawn out endlessly,
allowing for a prolonged
contemplation, and in both
cases the potential
violent result never
comes.
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