While I was a journalism student, I often went out seeking images on no particular assignment other than my own. During one such expedition, I came upon three very young children playing with what I could only see as a rifle. There were no adults around. Somehow the urgency of the moment led me to walk right up to them and ask if the gun was loaded. They said no but I asked for it to check. This became an awkward moment as I was a stranger! It became even more uncomfortable when they realized I wasn't going away. I knew that I wanted to stay and make pictures of this scene. So, I gave them my camera and let them pretend to shoot with something else for awhile. When they gave the camera back, they seemed to ignore me and I was able to document the graphic nature of their play.
Nearly 20 years ago, I photographed a small group of children playing with an unloaded rifle. The imagery was powerful and haunting and taught me that the culture of violence, particularly gun culture, is insidious. (I went on to build a career in photography. Currently a freelance shooter for the New York Times, I have shot assignments for LIFE, Vibe, and Creativity magazines as well as major record labels and commercial brands.)
By the turn of the millennium, I had become a mother as well as a professional photographer and was devastated, along with the rest of the country, when Buell Elementary reported that a six-year-old had brought a gun to school and shot another student. Somehow the shock and horror wore away to a clear perspective having shot the image here for your consideration. I reclaimed the image, made 500 posters, took them to Washington and joined in the Million Mom March. There seemed to be much hope for change as there was a string of school incidents in the 90's and everyone had the opinion that things had gone too far.
In January of this year, there was an open call to submit art work for a gallery exhibition in Washington DC titled Art Targets Guns. The gallery owner, Charles Krause (a former Washington Post Correspondent) had been shot with a semi-automatic rifle and was moved to mount a show using art to respond to the Newtown massacre.
In all honestly, I was as much in despair as I was validated by the fact that I had an image that spoke directly to this issue and was as potent now as it was decades ago. However, the imagery didn't seem to be enough. We had the images - graphic, real-life ones and it wasn't moving us toward change. I felt I needed to add my historic perspective to my piece.
Over the last four years, I have moved into an art practice with my photography and chose to bring all the elements of my training together for this piece - journalism, motherhood, art making. So, I created a piece of work titled 'History Repeating' in which I use the image I shot almost 20 years ago within a "mock" newspaper clipping which I wrote under the byline "Idle Citizen". I took the position that the children who are doing the shooting in much of these cases are victims as well and that we are failing them - as a society. I used literary references from William Butler Yeats and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's 'How Long' speech. The exhibition was a juried show and my work was accepted.
The work was also featured with Creative Time Reports, a new outlet for art practitioners whose work incorporates a social action component.