UNDER MY PILLOW

I am making cyanotypes of my neighbors guns in my homestead house in the Joshua Tree area. Jemez Homestead was homesteaded in 1957 through the a GI Bill program for WW2 and Korean War Vets to get 5 acres if they improve the land. The improvement was usually putting in a structure of a certain size.  Jemez Homestead is in the Flamingo Heights section of Yucca Valley off Old Woman Springs Road as you drive toward La Copine Restaurant , The Integratron,  and Landers.

I make the photo gram of my neighbors' guns one at a time at the location of their home in Flamingo Heights. This performance between myself and the gun owner requires much discussion of the controversy of gun regulations, gun ownership, and by natural occurrence politics, ideals of living arrangements, property, and government. It is "intense", and YES, handling the guns is "intense". 

To enter into conversation with the desert gun owners I have had to abandon my artist progressive stance on all ideals related to guns. I have entered into this discussion with an open mind, I am hearing phrases like.... "guns don't kill people, people kill people" for the first time... only to later discover it the national slogan for the NRA.  And these experiences have changed my life and my perspective on guns. At the very moment I am experiencing some PTSD from doing 3 cyanotypes yesterday of a loaded Smith & Wesson 44 caliber pistol !! 

More to come.....

Meg Madison May 27, 2016