Introduction
Before I left the US for Germany, I started work on a series of cliché verre c-prints of lace. I set them aside, not knowing what they were for. They were layered, intricate, feminine, and at times strangely bloody looking.
As I settled into my life in Germany, I started playing with the prints. I cut them up, collaging them together into abstract yet somewhat representational shapes. As I worked with them, one shape became prominent: that of a gun.
While living in the US, I had become inured to the daily reports of gun violence on the news. Now, with the privilege that comes with looking in from the outside, I became more and more horrified at how saturated with gun violence American culture is. This isn't to say that I hadn't noticed it while living there; I rallied after Oscar Grant's death in San Francisco and remember crying on a bus when reading as the reports of the Newtown massacre came in.
However, here, I stand as a representative of the United States, and our gun culture is one of the things I am asked about most regularly by people I meet. I regularly encounter people who are too afraid of our violent culture to visit. This is supported by the fact that multiple countries have now issued official warnings to tourists about our gun violence.
I open the news and every week I see reports of police shooting innocent people. The risk of getting shot by a toddler is greater than of being a victim of a terrorist attack. Mass shootings happen every week. Women are routinely gunned down by their partners because they tried to leave, or by strangers because they spurned their advances. This is America. While I know that overall the US is safer than it has ever been, it's still killing 13,000 people a year with guns.
And so I sit in my studio, thousands of miles away, raging at my culture that can't seem to do anything, and make gun after lacy gun, exploding with blood drips and anger and sadness.
