Gusty's Gun World

Painted Poplar, Fabric Trim, Antique Advertising Cards, 471 Bullets

28H x 47W x 4D

$9,000

On October 1, 2017, a madman, using long guns equipped with rapid-fire modifications, fired from a hotel window upon music lovers crowded below for the final night of the Route 91 Harvest music festival. Within ten minutes he killed 58 people and wounded 413 more .

Rather than make meaningful legislation that could help alleviate our national health crisis, politicians continue to offer the public only the bromide of a redundantly echoed platitude.

The people killed and wounded that night are honored here with 471 bullets.

Mixed media. 38L x 16W x 30H inches.

$6,000

At a political rally on 23 January 2016 presidential candidate Donald J Trump said, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and wouldn’t lose any voters, ok?”

In this tableau, Trump’s horror fantasy has come true: George Washington lies, bleeding, in the middle of Fifth Avenue as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton and Ben Franklin - fellow founding brothers - look on in shock and dismay.

PLA buttons on acrylic, with inkjet print

36h x 30w x 10d

$10,000

Early in the evening of February 26, 2012, Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African-American male, was returning home from a convenience store with a bag of candy when he was followed by an armed neighborhood watchman who thought him "suspicious." Ignoring orders received by phone from a local emergency dispatcher, the vigilante closed on Mr Martin.  

Although Trayvon Martin had apparently committed no crime,  the vigilante confronted him. A scuffle ensued, during which the assailant shot and killed Trayvon Martin.

When police searched Mr Martin's body a few minutes later at the crime scene, they found the bag of candy.

At trial, Mr Martin's killer was given a verdict of "not guilty" of both second-degree murder and manslaughter, the jury interpreting the killer's actions as self-defense under Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law.

Curiously, Mr Martin had not been allowed to stand his ground.

In May 2016, the vigilante assailant auctioned the handgun used to kill Mr Martin, describing it as "an American Firearm Icon" he had used to "end the brutal attack from Trayvon Martin."  

Trayvon Martin's Candy Gun is an ironic mockery of that "iconic" lethal handgun.

Sandy Hook Redemption Experiment (Failure)

Wood, glass, plastic, metal, pigment, chemicals, charcoal; 50w x 40h x 7d

 $12.000

The massacre of December 14, 2012 in Newton CT left 20 children and 6 educators dead, represented here by red Christmas tree balls. 

A smashed computer hard drive was found in the shooter's home, its contents undivulged - perhaps unknowable. The culprit, possibly in reaction to bullying by schoolmates or other undiagnosed causes, engrossed in "shooter" and warfare games on electronic consoles.

In this work, a tube of copper, Aphrodite's metal of harmony and adornment, directs a flow of energy from an exploding hard drive through the pyramid of fragile red balls, a crescent Moon (the shooter's enabling mother), a Black Sun (the shooter) a watch frozen at the moment the massacre began, and into the trigger of our national supreme fetish: a rapid-fire long gun.

 An alchemical oven heating base metals in a glass retort for the purpose of refinement and purification is like a modern therapist's couch: a place where a person can, through expert guidance and scrupulous self-honesty, transform distorted, fragmented, or dissociated psychic contents into a harmonious, complete person who is unique, functioning and, perhaps, even happy.

 If the tenor of the therapeutic retort becomes lax and insipid, the flames of internal pressure die down and no change is effected. If a person does not have the opportunity for therapy or lacks the self-motivation to create a valid life view, they may not be able to integrate conflicts, assuage fear and calm boiling rage. Pressure builds as internal passions roar out of control; the retort bursts, splattering family and strangers with hatred and anguish.

Mixed media

Altar + Triptych: 98w x 78h x 24d

Gun Table: 51w x 30h x 20d

Kneeler: 45w x 13h x 9d

Scorecard on Plinth: 23w x 64h x 13d

$50,000

Guns kindle controversy.

A small but powerful group among American gun devotees pursue their hobby with the narrow-minded fervor of religious ideologues. In so doing, they denigrate cultural values of the majority, as though taking potshots at a carnival arcade. The Art Shooting Gallery depicts these two attitudes: the distortions of gun worship mixed with the frivolity of an amusement park.

A triptych lined with brocade alludes to a religious retable with its icons, replaced here by images of fine art from many cultures, the skilled results of humanity’s most sensitive and meaningful creative efforts. Blended with this aura of sanctity is the devil-may-care atmosphere of patriotic carnival lights and the allure of swaying targets beckoning gamers to try their luck at marksmanship. A comfortable kneeler is provided for shooters as they pray for a good shot.

Competition is meaningless without keeping score, so I provide a simple method to weed the casual shooter from the committed zealot. Likewise, I provide the latest in gun technology for competitors: powerful, accurate, high-caliber weapons that fire big gulps of ammo rapidly. My assault weapons might have been decorated by Gorky, Johns, Malevich, Miro, Mondrian and other modern masters.

The Art Shooting Gallery installation protests the excessive privileging of these weapons of destruction by the “Feckless Gundamentalists.”

Wood, linen, plastic, pigment,metal, glass, wire, LED's, other media

Flag: 48w x 84h x 4d; Sink: 48w x 9h x 7d; Monster Wagon: 30L x 24w x 18h

$25,000

 The US flag is shown in distress position with the blue Union field to the right, signaling a mode of dishonor caused by the American Congress in partnership with the arms industry.

Blood drips as ribbons from rapid-fire military-sytle weapons into a sink, where it collects in the drain, to be drawn through a red hose by a hospital suction pump mounted on a Monster Wagon. Tissue paper blood collects in a glass jar; the overflow collects in a second jar as money.

(Memorial Gate to Capitol Hill)

Metal, fabric, plastic, pigment, wire, other media

Overall: 74w x84d x 55h

 $35,000

Another memorial to gunshot victims has sprung up spontaneously, only to be usurped by the firearms industry and gun club membership.

Tinkertoy politicians strive to reach Capitol Hill, where they swallow the ideology of gun lobbyists in order to fatten up before dispensing pork.

Having transformed into piggies, some politicians wander aimlessly or prattle with each other, while others assemble under the firm hand of their marshal.

 The outcome of both groups is like the behavior of yo-yo’s tumbling out the back door of our nation’s Capitol.

Iago's Nightmare

Mixed media

24w x 42h x 21d

$8,000

In the Temple of Propaganda, the gun is enshrined as an object of veneration and worshipped by its cult followers, some of whom fall to the ground in ecstasy. 

A battery of microphones receives the gun's oracular message and broadcasts it to an unseen congregation, suggesting the media dominance achieved by gun advocates and the businesses that produce and market guns. 

The Temple itself evokes the iconography of ancient Rome, a society whose rituals and sacred spaces were, as the state evolved from a republic to a totalitarian government, co-opted into tools to assert and maintain the privileges of the powerful.

Representing the Great State of Denial

Wood, glass, plastac, metal, pigment, chemicals, fabric rubber, paper, wire, LED's, other media

48w x 81h x 24d

$18,000

The US small-arms industry enjoys a measure of insularity from public opinion unequaled by even the oil conglomerates, and a level of public adoration only slightly below that of a high school football coach.

 The small-arms industry’s negative influence on public safety and personal serenity is directly proportional to the number of guns sold invisibly to your neighbors, augmented by the hoards of hidden ammo that feed their voracious appetites for destructive power.

 Acting as shills for the small-weapons manufacturing pimps, many US senators, blatantly ignoring the bulk of public wishes for tighter control of high-power guns and ammo, vote against the electorate with apparent impunity.

These representatives justify their behavior by parading a sordid cadre of lame logic, greedy motives and heartless bravado bolstered by patriotic platitudes and paralyzing paranoia.

Senator B.B. Brain Gunlobby is leader of that faction of government herding for mutual support, boasting a facade of braggadocio, while his inner child remains visionless, unformed and forlorn.

Wood, pigment, metal, fabric, other media

50w x 49h

$4,000

One suggestion in our public discourse is that we would be safer if we all carry guns. Contemplating this idea suggested, to me, a feudal device that is both playful and grim: Candy's Coat of Arms is a heraldic escutcheon surmounted by a steel jousting helmet and a soft, bright child's jacket, with teddy bears rampant. Slyly dangling from the ribbon where one would expect to see mittens are the two pistols proposed as the likely outcome of a society given over to completely unfettered gun access.

Fake Fuzz, Fabric, Wood, Plastic

42w x 72h x 17d

$3,000

This magnificent polar bear emerges from the dreamworld to remind us that there are powers superior to the human – not in destructiveness, but in healing ability.

Bear’s bearing reminds that he is the great guardian of ideas, plans and visions, waiting in the twilight-realm for humanity to draw upon, to learn true methods of courage in overcoming adversity.

 Bear’s cope displays the richness and refinement due the honored guest at the feast following our ritual of hunting and killing.

Bear’s spiritual weapon, manifest in a form Americans can understand, is more beautifully adorned, more powerful and more beneficial than any lethal human gun.

When standing, Bear is that most human-like of animals, reminding us of our kinship. When sitting on a throne of human-made ammo crates, Bear is approachable yet skeptical, and perhaps a bit mournful that Americans have elected fear as our sovereign.

Mixed media; 42” H

$3,000

Nuff said...