447 (2018)
Medium: Mixed Media-- 65 individually formed sheets of handmade paper (abaca fiber, gold & silver pigment, mica chips), red finger paint, baby footprints, accompanied by a poem.
This piece came about after thinking a lot about guns and parenting in America. Since my second son, Thurgood, was born almost 4 months ago, 447 children have been killed by guns in America. There are exactly 447 of my baby's footprints on this paper rendition of a tile floor--representing all of the young lives lost due to gunfire in his short lifetime.
447
When I think of tile floors I think of kitchens...I think of bathrooms...I think of schools... and malls...and hospitals...I think of my childhood... and linoleum...and the time that I was 5 and the girl next door and I ran across my porch, freshly painted crimson red, and then ran through the neighbor's house, blood red footprints on the chessboard of that poor woman's kitchen tiles...it didn't used to make me think of danger... it made me think of innocence.
In the almost 4 months since my second son was born, 447 kids have been killed by guns in America. 447 children shot accidentally or on purpose by other children or adults in homes, in churches, in schools, in shopping malls, in bedrooms, in movie theaters, on playgrounds... in this country. 447 young voices snuffed out because someone in this country was reckless and senseless and careless with their weapons. 447 parents who won't ever hear again their children breathing the soft whispers of sleep. And I'm numb.
I hear of another shooting on the news and there's so many that the names of towns all blur together, let alone the names of victims, or their parents, it's all too much to wrap around. And I gloss over, scroll past, watch the videos with the sound off, silent mouths speaking out, I'm sure they're loud but no one's listening. I can't allow the sound of grieving to drill into my ears, I can't let myself imagine a world without my kids.
But 447 parents who may have worried about something like this but never really thought it would happen to them are reeling, unwillingly surviving, digging deep holes and placing their babies inside. And their babies might be teenagers but they're still their babies, and those parents will just have to try to remember the look of wonder when that kid encountered something new, or the warm linen scent of their hair and the sweet soapy glow in the space between the bath and bedtime, the delicious weight of children's arms wrapped so tightly around their necks because their children are gone and there's nothing they can do.
And so now when I think of tile floors I think of danger and bathrooms and schools and parents and guns and shopping malls and hospitals and bullets and blood and red and childhood and death. I think of kitchens with blood red painted footprints. And I'm numb.
I'm trying to think about how not to feel numb.