Guns In The Hands Of Artists

In the 1990s, the New Orleans murder rate exploded. In 1996, 350 people were killed—the highest number in the city’s history, and the highest rate in the nation. In response to this crisis, gallery owner and artist Jonathan Ferrara and artist Brian Borrello, launched a powerful project: Guns in the Hands of Artists. Over sixty artists, including painters, glass artists, sculptors, photographers, and poets, used decommissioned guns taken off the city streets via a gun buyback program to express a thought, make a statement, open a discussion, and to stimulate thinking about guns and gun violence in America. As gun violence continues to devastate the nation on a daily basis, Guns in the Hands of Artists reemerged in 2012 as a community-based social activist art project that has since traveled to six cities across the US. Using art as a mirror for life and interweaving the works of thirty diverse artists with the voices of seventeen national thought leaders, this book is an important outgrowth of the exhibition and an extension of its efforts to employ art as a vehicle for dialogue, as a call to action, and—ultimately—as an agent of change. Essays by: Walter Isaacson, Senator Tim Kaine, Lupe Fiasco, Richard Ford, Joe Nocera, Trymaine Lee, Lolis Eric Elie, John M. Barry, Dan Cameron, Lucia McBath, Harry Shearer, Jonathan Ferrara, Brian Borrello, Maria Cuomo Cole, Michael Waldman, E. Ethelbert Miller, Mayor Mitchell J. Landrieu, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and Captain Mark Kelly.

Lord Hideyoshi, the regent of Japan at the time, took the first step toward the control of firearms. It was a very small step, and it was not taken simply to protect feudal lords from being shot at by peasants but to get all weapons out of the hands of civilians. He said nothing about arms control. Instead, he announced that he was going to build a statue of Buddha that would make all existing statues look like midgets. It would be so enormous (the figure was about twice the scale of the Statue of Liberty), that many tons of iron would be needed just for the braces and bolts. Still more was required to erect the accompanying temple, which was to cover a piece of ground something over an eighth of a mile square. All farmers, ji-samurai, and monks were invited to contribute their swords and guns to the cause. They were, in fact, required to. -- from publisher description.

The History and Art of the American Gun is a loving tribute to the artistry of firearms. Wilson chronicles the true art and rich history of gun engraving, from early English and European attempts to American gun engraving. Skyhorse Publishing is proud to publish a broad range of books for hunters and firearms enthusiasts. We publish books about shotguns, rifles, handguns, target shooting, gun collecting, self-defense, archery, ammunition, knives, gunsmithing, gun repair, and wilderness survival. We publish books on deer hunting, big game hunting, small game hunting, wing shooting, turkey hunting, deer stands, duck blinds, bowhunting, wing shooting, hunting dogs, and more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to publishing books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked by other publishers and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Presents a portrait collection of women and guns with subjects expressing their passion for firearms.

Describes the details of design and history of swords.

Here is the vibrant, colorful, high-stepping story of tap -- the first comprehensive, fully documented history of a uniquely American art form. Writing with all the verve and grace of tap itself, Constance Valis Hill offers a sweeping narrative, filling a major gap in American dance history and placing tap firmly center stage.

Not Another One! is a youth-led discussion that opens communication and identifies commonality, greater understanding, and ways to cooperate and collaborate between city police and teenage youth as both work to lower the high rates of gun violence in St. Louis, Missouri. The discussion details citizen rights, police policies and procedures, trauma caused by gun violence, and possible solutions in a frank, honest, and respectful discussion.

The fascinating story of the American inventor and manufacturer who perfected the revolver Samuel Colt (1814-1862) first patented his "Colt" revolver in 1835 and thereby redefined the architecture of handguns. This stunning book is the first to present in detail the evolution of his most famous invention and to document the unsurpassed Colt firearms collections held by the Wadsworth Atheneum. Colt designed his revolvers with an artistic sensibility--paying particular attention to form and beauty and juxtaposing colors and finishes to heighten the visual effects. He was also one of the first American manufacturers to secure celebrity endorsements and to commission paintings by renowned artists like George Catlin to promote his arms. Colt's standards for excellence, industrial foresight, and quest for market domination are explored in light of primary documents that reveal his constant battles to protect his patents. Essays discuss Colt's personal collection of historic firearms as well as the memorial collection of Colt-manufactured firearms, the relationship between art and commerce as they pertain to the inventor's career, and his international celebrity. Richly illustrated and beautifully produced, this volume presents the artistry of the firearms that Colt worked so diligently to perfect--as well as his promotional abilities that made a tremendous impact on American culture.

A revelatory, fast-paced account of the most exciting, frenzied, and revolutionary decade in art history—1905 to the dawn of World War I in 1914—and the avant-garde artists who indelibly changed our visual landscape Modern begins on a specific day—March 22, 1905—at a specific place: the Salon des Indépendants in Paris, where works of art we recognize as modern were first exhibited. Drawing on his forty five-year fine art career, author Philip Hook illuminates how this new art came to be—and how truly shocking it was. With Hook’s expert guidance, we witness movement upon movement that burst forth in dizzying succession: Fauvism, Expressionism, Primitivism, Symbolism, Cubism, Futurism, and Abstract art. As Hook barnstorms across Europe—to London, Germany, Moscow, Scandinavia, and everywhere modern art was being made—his vivid accounts breathe new life into the work and times of Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani, Kandinsky, Malevich, Klimt, Schiele, Munch, and nearly two hundred other artists who painted, sculpted, and exhibited alongside them, and whose collective genius was understood and appreciated by few at the time. Hook reconsiders the decade from a series of fresh angles: What was the conventional art against which Modernism sought to rebel? Why were avant-garde artists so self-obsessed? What persuaded a few bold collectors to buy difficult modern art? And why did others pay so much money for Old Masters at the same time? Modern helps us answer these questions and more—and to see how avant-garde artists marshaled their genius (and oftentimes their madness) to create works of such profound consequence, they still reverberate today—and which, taken together, made for a movement more influential than even the Renaissance.