{"id":12065,"date":"2016-11-03T13:22:33","date_gmt":"2016-11-03T13:22:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artzealous.com\/?p=12065"},"modified":"2016-11-03T13:22:33","modified_gmt":"2016-11-03T13:22:33","slug":"whats-in-natalie-baxters-fluffy-guns-and-flags","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/whats-in-natalie-baxters-fluffy-guns-and-flags\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s in Natalie Baxter’s Fluffy Guns and Flags?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Like most Americans this week, soft-sculpture artist Natalie Baxter is unable to escape the most tumultuous presidential elections in our lifetimes between Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican candidate Donald Trump. Her particular American identity is a layered and movable form. She weaves her experience into her ever growing collection of quilted handguns. Floppy and colorful, they will be hung on walls, flaccidly in upcoming exhibits in <\/span>Accessory (A Gun Fad)<\/span><\/i><\/a> at Redline in Denver, Co (Nov. 4-Dec. 4) and <\/span>Alison Milne Gallery<\/span><\/a> in Toronto, Ca (Nov. 17-Jan. 1).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Her soft sculpture bloomed out of walking into a living room decked with handguns, familial tradition and a growing feeling of the U.S. violently clawing at its embedded ideas of gender and race. These have violently been brought to the fore with our recent history of racially-charged shootings and in Republican rallies across the country. Read on to hear about her melding of gold lam\u00e9, Beatles lyrics, and experiences leading up to Nov. 8, 2016:<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Art Zealous: Could you talk about your art practice?<\/strong><\/p>\n Natalie Baxter:<\/strong> For the last two years I\u2019ve been making soft sculpture in a project called <\/span>Warm Guns<\/span><\/i><\/a>.<\/span><\/i> They\u2019re soft, droopy, colorful, almost cartoon-like guns. Lately, I\u2019ve been making these stuffed flags, called <\/span>Bloated Flags<\/span><\/i><\/a>. <\/span><\/i>They\u2019re bloated with lots of frills, very flamboyant.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n AZ:\u00a0Warm Guns <\/i>and Bloated Flags. <\/i>Your names are very simple but loaded. What goes into them?<\/strong><\/p>\n NB:<\/strong> It\u2019s like the Beatles song \u201cHappiness is a Warm Gun.\u201d A pillow is warm, cuddly, and soft. My guns have a pillow quality. Also, a warm gun is one that has just been shot.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n To talk in more general terms, our country has a very complicated with guns. I\u2019m from Kentucky, which is a very gun-loving state. I was home for Christmas a few years ago. My friend had a wall of little handguns (real ones). I was doing a lot of sewing at the time and my grandmother had taught me how to quilt. I had just finished a quilt that she and I started and I had never really brought sewing into my art practice. I saw these guns and I wondered what it would look like to have a wall of stuffed, quilted guns. I started making some and that was around the time of <\/span>Trayvon Martin<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Tamir Rice<\/span><\/a>. <\/span>Black Lives Matter<\/span><\/a> was really heating up and guns were very much in the media. At that time police in New York had been murdered.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n AZ: How would describe your experience of people\u2019s feelings on gun control in New York versus Kentucky?<\/strong><\/p>\n NB:<\/strong> I had been living in New York for a couple years by that time. So that really made me pay attention to it. I was like \u201cwow, you would never see a wall of handguns in an apartment in New York.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Parts\u00a0of the state where my grandmother and mom are from, where I learned to quilt is more gun-loving. It\u2019s rural. People\u2019s relationships on what should be done are varying, more so than in New York. Just like what\u2019s happening in this political election: you don\u2019t find a lot of Trump supporters in New York; You do in Kentucky. You don\u2019t find a lot of people in New York toting guns, you do when you live on a farm and your neighbors live far away, so you might think it would be a good idea to have a shotgun. The relationship people have with guns is emotional, it\u2019s very complicated.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Another thing in this project is masculinity and gun ownership. The gun itself is this masculine symbol in Hollywood. Looking at gender and how it\u2019s morphed in the last few years and how it related to gun ownership, there\u2019s this <\/span>Quartz article<\/span><\/a> about gender roles morphing<\/span>\u2014<\/span>women are taking higher roles in the workplace in more traditionally masculine roles<\/span>\u2014<\/span>and men [using] gun ownership as a way to regain masculinity.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n