Bound & Determined; acrylic on wood, embroidery thread; 37″W X 38″H X 2.5″D

I grew up in the shadow of World War II during the Civil Rights and Cold War era. I was surrounded by the images and thoughts, not only of the horrendous violence of “our” historical victory, but the hovering threat of nuclear annihilation. Against that slammed the images and thoughts of the anti-war movement and the nominally passive resistance of the civil rights struggle. More personally, I have lived in neighborhoods where gun violence was a reality and always possible. I know people—including kids—lost to guns. The thinking confounds me. I do not have an answer. This piece expresses something of my quandary.

Bound & Determined was submitted to and accepted by The Warehouse Theatre in Greenville for their juried exhibit, MIRROR – Visual Arts as Social Commentary. The exhibit coincided with the opening performance at the theater of the play The Mountaintop.

The Mountaintop is a play by American playwright Katori Hall. It is a fictional, surreal, magical-realist depiction of Martin Luther King Jr.’s last night on earth. It is an artistic commentary on that historic event and the personal and social issues that surrounded it and continue to surround us.

For the Warehouse exhibit, artist were invited to offer works that were “social commentaries.” Several dozen local artists submitted their work in a variety of media. Social and political issues addressed were also varied in scope, including climate change, civil rights and prejudice, violence, and consumerism to list a few—issues that surround us and interweave with our daily lives.

The statement accompanying my submission read: “Bound & Determined” presents a visualization of the problematic thinking behind the use of violence. The stylized black and red “explosion” is overlaid by the image of an assault weapon twisted back on itself. Rendered in cartoonish colors, these elements convey the power that the use of violence tries to project. But the weapon itself is “bound” by delicate threads, representing the fragility, shallowness, and insensitivity of such thinking. The weapon’s muzzle is aimed back at the trigger.

This piece is a re-working of something I did a few years ago. Using the original plywood painted cutout of the weapon, I mounted it on a more dynamic, cohesive background. I painted variously sized shutter slats flat black, adhering these at different angles and levels above the red-painted, rough plywood background. The cutout weapon “floats” beyond the dimensional background. Red and blue-green embroidery thread wrap around the weapon.

The image is intentionally more iconic or symbolic than a literal presentation of violence. It is, I hope, an invitation to consider the threads of thought that bind us to the reality of violence.