Corey Pickett in Guns to Art
courtesy abqjournal.com

“It’s hard to describe how people almost fetishize these things. I don’t calculate a gun into my basic needs of shelter, food, and health. I like to put the issue into a material discussion. Firearms are made out of iron, and iron is a transient material. We melt it down. We recycle it. We reuse it. And we can’t cut up and get rid of guns any faster than the manufacturers make them.” – Sculptor Jeremy Thomas in Taking aim: “Guns to Art Benefit Show” [via santafenewmexican.com]

34 COMMENTS

  1. “…It’s hard to describe how people almost fetishize these things.”

    Said by the man who has fetishized these things.

  2. ” I don’t calculate a gun into my basic needs of shelter, food, and health.”

    Soooo our little sculpture maker doesn’t think guns get food or help with is basic health. Until some kind of disaster in which he can’t get the app to work or no working ATM and no stores left with pre-packaged eat stuff. Then what? As to health my basic health needs requires that I also keep that same health in the face of a bad guy, a warm blooded mammal looking at me like pre-packaged eats. Or snakes and other varmints. Which require me to be armed with a working gun. His art guns are of no use to me. Nor are his feels.

    All the feels in the world do not stop predators whether 2 or 4 legged. But a little lead does. Maybe art boy can toss some paint at them or throw one of his art guns. I can toss bullets at predators too, but they are going a lot faster and more efficient outta the end of the barrel.

  3. That poor derringer!!! Good Lord he tarted that poor thing up like some common Baltimore street walking corner worker! Doesn’t he know that engraving and inlays would look much more classy on that piece? Hasn’t this fool seen the exquisite engraving done on guns throughout history or is he just trying to virtue signal by making guns into hideous examples of “art”?

    • It’s called quilt shop camoflage.

      Ever wonder why you never hear about quilt shops getting robbed? This is why. 🙂

      • My dearly departed Gammy gam would never use such hideous fabric in her quilts! She preferred classier looking solids and geometric patterns. Paisley is the devil’s fabric!

      • He was also the prototypical fascist…for whatever that’s worth. I also hate artists in general…but I also think it’s a darn good thing our founders didn’t listen to any of Plato’s notions on government.

    • Artists are just children that never grow up no matter how many years they live.

      I don’t hate them. But I recognize their lack of adult growth. A person that identifies as an artist should probably not be allowed to vote. We don’t allow sub 18 yo’s to vote.

    • Well I’d like to try and defend artistic pursuits and free expression this kind of neo-liberal soy-boys really are just not worth the skin their printed on. Everything they do is more about self aggrandizement than actually trying to make a real meaningful statement.

      Hell my family lived next to that class of ‘artist’ back in the 90s. Then ended up burning our house down when they broke in to our house in the middle of the night and wired a cable to their house and tried to steal power from us and another neighbors home. Worked for about a week before something finally arched and we had a major electrical fire.

  4. If he owned that gun, he can tart it up any way he likes. I just don’t want to look at it… or pay for it. Don’t hate artists at all… just have strict criteria for what I call “art.”

    BTW… is this guy related to Obummer’s “pajama boy?”

  5. ‘He makes large soft sculptures of vintage guns influenced by Cold War-era futuristic space-travel movies and Afrofuturism, a cultural aesthetic that combines elements of science fiction and magical realism with Afrocentrism. Rimfire 2, a pistol made of red, white, and blue floral and spiral prints, is realistic yet toy-like, not menacing but not entirely safe-seeming, either.’

    Sooooo… he makes throw pillows that are ‘not entirely safe-seeming’? Perhaps if he had sewn a trigger guard on it he could avoid triggering the snowflakes?

    • Back when I was an 11B in the army there was rumor that the airforce wouldn’t take you if you got out and tried to join, if you were prior service and infantry. Probably just an interservice rivalry joke, but I could see it being true.

  6. He doesn’t calculate a gun into those needs, because he’s outsourced fulfillment of all of those needs. He’s physically, philosophically, mentally, even spiritually, wholly disconnected from fulfillment of those needs. Other men and women, some with guns, fulfill those needs for him. He’s basically a ward of the state.

    You don’t have to be Paul Bunyan, roaming the Pacific northwest with Babe the Blue Ox, sleeping under the stars, and living off the land. However, you should have some minimal survivalist skills, even in the city. You definitely should have respect for how things really get done and what risks lurk under the thin veneer of what passes for civilization.

    Mr. artsy-fartsy here, supposedly more in touch, “woke”, and self-aware, if the cliches are to be believed, doesn’t have a clue. Grow up and grow a pair, dude.

    • He does have a means to address those concerns when they arise: curl up in to a ball and die. I’ve had lots encounters/arguments/discusions with people like this. When you back them in to corner regarding the immediate need for lethal self defense, they all say, “Well then, I guess I’ll be dead then,” or, “I guess my children are going to die.” Its a show stopper for me, because after that I’m usually so filled with disgust that I just walk away.

    • Firearms incorporate more industrial and artistic disciplines than any subject of similar complexity, except perhaps fine jewelry

  7. Bet I could cut his pillows a hell of a lot easier than transitory iron. Good thing the ATF hasn’t weighed in. I’m no expert, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for a man who makes pillows for a living to spend even a short time in prison.

  8. “His” (cis gender?)guns-it is it’s choice what to do with it. I spent last weekend at an antique/Holiday market. The folks across from us had a huge selection of “steampunk” lighting. And some they destroyed an antique piece(no guns!). My point is I have no say in what they do…

  9. Maslowe’s hierarchy of needs states that at a baseline we need shelter, food, and security before anything else is possible. A firearm helps you provide a minimum of two of those by yourself. You can provide your own food with a firearm and can provide your own security. Shelter does not necessarily mean a structure as much as basic protection from the elements. In essence if you’ve got a poncho/good jacket, a firearm, and the ability to make fire you’re physically set for survival. We don’t fetishize these devices- they’re simply a highly efficient way of providing our basic needs.

    • I thought Maslow’s hierarchy went something like:

      .22 caliber rifle
      Bolt action rifle between .24 and .35 caliber
      .22 caliber handgun
      .357 Magnum revolver
      12 gauge shotgun
      M-1911
      Lever action rifle
      M1-Garand
      BAR

  10. “And we can’t cut up and get rid of guns any faster than the manufacturers make them.” – Sculptor Jeremy Thomas”
    No.
    No, you can’t.
    So what are trying to accomplish then?
    🤠

  11. “It’s hard to describe how people almost fetishize these things.”
    Says the guy who makes his living fetishizing guns so people will stop and stare.

  12. “And we can’t cut up and get rid of guns any faster than the manufacturers make them”-Sculptor Jermey Thomas

    Because (s)he can’t afford them. They’re called starving artists for a reason. I’m sure (s)he is appling for a grant to get more from their local constabulary’ “buy back” program. Surprised its featured piece wasn’t a Jennings JA25…..

  13. Remember when art was about challenging human perception? About challenging the accepted norms of a culture with an entirely new way of expressing human emotions and the primordial ideas that make up the very core of what it is to be human? Impressionism, cubism, abstract art like Pollock, and the great religious painters who explored our deepest psychological foundations, they all were artists because they conveyed things we always knew but couldn’t say. Since the 60’s “art” has devolved into this hypercritical, navel-gazing ouroboros that serves only to portray only the same opinions endlessly parroted over and over. Is it any wonder no one listens to the “artist” class anymore? There’s more artistry, care, and meaning in a custom built pistol or rifle than in a hundred contrived, obvious, and frankly boring “commentaries” on the same tired issues.

    • There’s nothing left to challenge, and few left who promote the original culture. That type of modern art destroyed centuries of cumulative artistic progress with all its mold-breaking & rejection of norms, leaving behind nothing but nostalgia for the old ways as we see in the current proliferation of ‘post modern’ imitation of past works that will carry no legacy whatsoever. Thirty years on and ‘greats’ like Warhol are already largely forgotten.

  14. I like the painted derringer!
    I paint guns with Cerakote and Duracoat
    I mostly do camo patterns, also some 2 tone pistols
    Cerakote is so easy to use even a child could do it!
    I am in love with the burnt bronze color
    Just follow the prep directions exactly
    Each one is a working piece of art
    No two exactly alike
    Look on my website to get ideas, then
    Try it yourself!

  15. WOW! This would be the perfect pillow to have a hidden compartment for stashing your favorite home defense sawed off semi-automatic assault bump stock derringer. With duck feather silencer. Or Horse Feathers!

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