"ORANGES"
“Their exit wounds were the size of oranges”.
The size of oranges.
Emergency room doctors describe their horror and helplessness when addressing the immense damage done to our children by the bullets from an AR-15 semi-automatic weapon, damage that is impossible to treat successfully. First responders are unable to stem the rivers of blood, doctors are unable to repair the massive tissue and organ disintegration. The shooter does not even have to make the effort to aim, once his target is hit it is a virtual death sentence. An ER physician says “They had no fighting chance at life”.
How does an artist convey her visceral reaction to this horrific imagery? And how does she plead with responsible gun owners to end this nightmare of private ownership of weapons designed for war, to end the death grip of the NRA?
I wish I knew.
#NEVERAGAIN
Reece Museum. Johnson City, TN
"FL3TCH3R Exhibit: Socially and Politically Engaged Art, juried by Anita Kunz
2017
Rusted silk fabric using discarded automotive braked pads, dozens of artist dyed small fibers meshed with free motion sewing to create the border and the bowl, mounted on painted toy guns.
"EMPTY BOWLS OF YEMEN"
Save The Children, an international organization established in 1919, estimates that 85,000 children under the age of 5 have died from starvation in Yemen due to the civil war. According to the United Nations, Yemen is now (April 2019) the worst humanitarian crisis in the world; 14 million mothers, fathers, and children are on the brink of starvation. On April 16, our President vetoed a bi-partisan bill to end US military support and the sale of arms to Saudi Arabians who ship them directly to Yemen, enabling this horrific war. The Trump administration supports Saudi Arabia in these efforts despite their horrific record of violating human rights, the latest of which was the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Thirty other political opposition members were recently hung in public.
Type your paragraph here.
3D Wall Hanging Diptych
36 x 42 x 15” Silks are tea-dyed and rusted by the artist using automotive brake pads. Crocheted border. Guns and oranges are artist dyed and commercial fabrics, heavily beaded. Mounted on painted toy guns.
"Laura Got Lynched From the Bridge"
58 x 22 x 12
Laura Nelson, along with her son, L.D., were arrested after an incident involving a stolen cow, an incident that escalated. After their arrest, an enraged mob of over forty white men broke them out of jail and lynched them from a bridge over the North Carolina River near Okemah, Oklahoma, on May 25, 1911. Both were repeatedly raped prior to the lynching. The son was photographed lynched from the bridge with his pants hanging around his feet. Laura’s son was 12 years old.
Laura’s and her son’s photographs are the only ones we have today of a lynched woman and child although nearly all lynchings of the estimated 4,000 black men and over 200 women and children were photographed and printed as postcards. These postcards were sent around our fair country .....to the friends and relatives of the rapists and murderers and from the townspeople, ….as was customary after a lynching. One mob member and Klansman was named Charley Guthrie. Charley is the father of Woody Guthrie and the grandfather of Arlo Guthrie. (Ironically, Woody’s “This Land is your Land” and Arlo’s “City of New Orleans” are two of my all time favorite patriotic folk songs.)
In the one remaining black and white photo of this travesty of a woman and her child being lynched I could make out the difference in hues of the polka dots on the fabric she used to make her dress. As I am a textile artist, I recreated them individually in her honor. She also, as I could discern from the photo, made slippers or shoe tops to match her dress.
I think that was the final spear piercing my already broken heart.
Silk rusted with discarded brake discs, stitched with anonymous lynched women.
The Laura 3D figure is hand and machine stitched using rayon thread, her face is done with both prism colored pencils and stitching. The independent hung noose hangs from the ceiling approximately 12 inches from the piece.
"GUNNED DOWN GRANDSONS"
Grandmothers of young black men quake in fear when their grandsons are outside of the home.....will they return safely?
Or will they be stopped for a routine police check and have their actions misinterpted?
Or worse, will they be shot in the back or choked to death for a minor offence?
All too often a Grandmother's worst fears come true.
Today is Mother's Day; I think of and honor all grief stricken grandmothers.
patricia turner art
"Of Victims and Violence"
Ringling Basch and Smith Galleries
Reception May 31, 5 to 7
FLAG exhibit June 1 - 21, 2019
Art Center Sarasota, First Place
Reece Museum, FL3TCH3R Exhibit
"Healthcare and The Arts" Award
Reece Museum, Johnson City TN
"Healthcare And the Arts " Award
November, 2018
"ORANGES"
has been awarded
FIRST PLACE
by Juror Nathan Beard at Art Center Sarasota.
"This work contains all the elements of art, put together quite powerfully. The composition comes out at you ; it is at first deceptively soft and passive and then becomes a powerful statement that is confrontational and active without being violent. Two children look at each other .....but what is obviously missing is an adult."
We, the viewers, are the adults.
“ORANGES”, about the human carnage caused by AR-15’s, was awarded the
“Healthcare and The Arts” FL3TCH3R Exhibit award at the Reece Museum in TN last week by donor Dr. Eric Avery, psychiatrist and artist. Recently, 60 Minutes did a TV segment on this horrid topic; first responders now recommend we all carry “blood kits” to stem the blood flow of a mass murderer’s weapon designed for war, even in our children’s school backpacks. “Their wounds were the size of oranges.” #NEVERAGAIN