Linda Lighton : “ Taking Aim ” on Gun Culture
By Mackenzie Leighton
“
When I was doing this research , I searched online and asked friends , ‘ Do you know anybody that ’ s ever been saved with a gun ?’ I couldn ’ t get an answer . — Linda Lighton
When face to face with I don ’ t want a bullet to kiss your heart , you cannot escape looking down the barrel of a gun , or rather , being confronted by its omnipresence . A portal formed by two arches greets you with hundreds of ceramic guns glazed in a muted yellow pigment , as if gold could rust .
This sculpture by
Linda Lighton serves as the focal point of the 2012 exhibition “ Taking Aim ,” at Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art in Kansas City , Missouri . The ambiguity of the work reflects a distinctly American attitude towards guns : we simultaneously glorify and condemn them as they repel and lure us in .
Lighton is a Kansas City-based ceramic artist who has been practicing art full time since 1973 . For the past seven years , she has produced social commentary on gun violence and its presence in her community serves as a catalyst in her practice . In 2010 , her husband saw a six-person shootout at 8:30 on a Monday morning while driving to her studio located near
Troost Avenue , a major racial and economic dividing line . Lighton was shocked to find that there had been no news coverage following the incident and became concerned for the safety of her neighborhood .
Her sculpture , Love and War : The Ammunition II , explores the intersection of gender and gun violence by showcasing bullets that double as lipstick tubes . The idea came to Lighton after her former intern began working at a bullet factory in Kansas City . Upon seeing photographs of various types , Lighton noticed the strange resemblance of the heat seeking bullet to a lipstick tube . Thus , she equates an object of war and destruction with one of cultural femininity and beauty standards . Modern City State places lipstick tube bullets alongside guns , revealing the allure of such objects and how their synthesis dismantles conventional ideas of masculinity .
Lighton ’ s ceramic work often explores
feminine sexuality , and her work on gun violence embeds this seductive motif in the context of hypermasculinity . Lighton embraces the phallicism of the weapons to further incorporate gender into the conversation . Candy Coated Fear and Greed also features bullet lipstick tubes , but interspersed with pistols and gas pumps painted in bright pastels . Lighton shapes a connection between the pervasive masculinity in both the oil and gun industries while subverting the phallicism of the objects themselves .
While the victims of gun violence are often women , the perpetrators are overwhelmingly male . We spoke of the 2011
Gabrielle Giffords shooting in Tucson , Arizona , in which Democratic Representative Giffords survived a gunshot wound to the head after a 22-year-old male shooter targeted her at a “ Congress on Your Corner ” meeting . After opening fire into the
crowd , the shooter wounded 13 and killed six , including three elderly civilians , a chief judge , and a nine-year-old girl .
“ You have to keep the conversation alive ,” she tells me , “ because there is no conversation . The job often of an artist is to reflect whats going on in society .”
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