At the urging of a friend, Corwin took the guns to his studio and began using them in a series of dramatic photos that became his exhibit, “Guns in America,” which opens at the Holter Museum of Art with a reception 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, June 24, and an artist talk at 6:30 p.m.
Corwin, who’s made his living as a commercial and fine arts photographer, found his first photo attempts disappointing. “I wasn’t connected emotionally.”
But then he spotted a piece of rusted, pitted metal in his studio that he’d used for a different project.
“I laid the gun in the center of it” and “severely changed the lighting and the way I approached doing it and something clicked.”
He realized, “I could do things with guns to communicate more of what I’m trying to say,” he said in a phone interview from his home in Cardwell.
But then he spotted a piece of rusted, pitted metal in his studio that he’d used for a different project.
“I laid the gun in the center of it” and “severely changed the lighting and the way I approached doing it and something clicked.”
He realized, “I could do things with guns to communicate more of what I’m trying to say,” he said in a phone interview from his home in Cardwell.
Like everyone else, he said, he felt devastated about Sandy Hook.
“I just decided to use my father’s guns as a way to communicate what I feel about gun violence in this country.”
The props he uses to create his photographic scenes have a vintage look, inspired by his father’s vintage guns.
Corwin uses these symbolically to call attention to the “outdated” 1791 law, the Second Amendment. “It’s old time,” he said, adding that it hasn’t kept up with changes in U.S. society and guns and should be amended.
One powerful photo the viewer will see is from a stark classroom – an empty old-fashioned student desk with an open book on it. Next to the desk a furled American flag, a splatter of blood on the wall behind the desk. Above the desk a Doomsday-inspired Clock showing a few minutes to midnight, a universal symbol of threat to humanity. On the desk seat, a gun.
Corwin assembled this image after a school shooting.
“Sometimes clocks are the beginning of an idea,” he said. “Sometimes events are the beginning of an idea.”
|