The Gun Issue - OF NOTE Magazine The Gun Issue | Page 60

Kadie Salfi : Guns of Mass Destruction

By Katie Beeton

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I am trying to stimulate conversations about hard subjects that may inspire creative thought , change , and action to alter our relationship with guns . — Kadie Salfi

Kadie Salfi does not believe we are paying enough attention to gun laws and the impact that these laws have on women . The gun laws are “ way too loose ” in the artist ’ s opinion .

Through SNAFU , a collection of life-size replicas of the guns used in American mass shootings from 1966 to present , where five or more people were killed , Salfi explores our country ’ s troubled relationship with guns . She symbolizes each shooting via a life-size painting of the gun used to commit the act , emphasizing , through the repetition of form , the ubiquity of guns in America .

In presenting the gun over and over again as a work of art , Salfi shows how the object functions as a politicallycharged weapon . The granddaughter of a war hero and navigator of a B26 airplane in World War II , Salfi came up with the war acronym ‘ SNAFU ’ (‘ Situation Normal All Fucked Up ’) to describe the series .

“ I am trying to stimulate conversations about hard subjects that may inspire creative thought , change , and action to alter our relationship with guns ,” she says .

Interested in maintaining a relationship between the subject of guns and material , Salfi says that she “ always thinks about the form as much as the content .” She works with simple materials , careful to maintain an elegant respect for the subject matter . She is keen not to turn her work into “ shock art .” The choice of material holds significance for the artist ; the pieces of wood she uses are recycled scraps from the skateboard company Salfi and her husband own . The grain of the wood and the knotted , coalescing marks and crevices which occur naturally over time on the wood ’ s surface speak to the deeply turbulent and interwoven nature of the mass shootings the artworks address .

The Sandy Hook shooting in 2012 was a catalyzing force in the creation of SNAFU . Salfi , the mother of a young daughter , recalls weeping as she heard a story on the radio about a mother crawling into the still-warm bed of her deceased child , upon hearing the devastating news of the shooting . Salfi drove home to hold her own daughter ’ s sheets to see if they were still warm . They were . It was a tender and chilling moment for the artist , and one which inspired her to take action . Scared to send her daughter to school the next day and disturbed by how pervasive gun violence had become in America , Salfi decided to focus on the theme of mass shootings in schools as SNAFU evolved .

Although the larger project of SNAFU looks at all gun violence in America , with women in the United States accounting for 84 % of all female firearm victims in the developed world , it is not surprising that many of the victims of the mass shootings Salfi covers are female . Perhaps the most shockingly evident case of a mass shooting related to misogyny was the Santa Barbara shooting in 2014 . Elliot Rodger , who targeted a sorority house at the University of California , allegedly belonged to an anti-women group . Roger , who killed six people before taking his own life , directed his rage toward women , evidenced in a 141-page manifesto he produced .

The choice to render the life-size guns in red acrylic paint against the plywood may seem obvious for a project about mass shootings . Red is the color of danger and bloody violence . Yet , the red guns operate on a literal level as well as a symbolic level — they reflect a psychological and political state of alarm .

Salfi documents each shooting with facts . She handwrites the gun ’ s make and model number , and the victim ’ s name in white and blue letters . It is literally a red , white and

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