When I dreamed up the Metro Gunshare program it was actually “Freedom Share” and it was intended to be swaddled in Old Glory and brought to you by, and a direct reproach of, the NRA and their unending clamor for MORE GUNS in the face of tragedy after tragedy. I asked myself what full-firearm saturation could possibly look like…and NRA sponsored rentals was where I landed. The original expectation was that the credit card kiosk would ask the user a series of queries reflecting actual Assault Rifle purchase regulation. “Are you under 18, Are you a felon, Have a restraining order?”…answer no to these questions and you can purchase 5 assault rifles (True, In Indiana at that time).

Unfortunately it appears the project ultimately reflected more then intended as “art bows to commerce”(or PR anyway) was perhaps more personally portrayed when my employer of 16 years, which I’d thought was simply funding my project for mutual interest, assumed authoritarian creative control and then quite numb-headedly turned it into an artfully meaningless billboard commenting on guns crossing statelines. Guns across statelines? An installation pretending to supply Assault Rifles on site and immediately? Dumbfounding!

They nonetheless received a vast amount of international attention and industry accolade. I was not, to my knowledge, credited.

Still, happily, it garnered great attention locally and overseas and, I earnestly hope, caused more then a few souls to examine or re-examine our country’s hyper fetishized relationship with weapons of war.

The Installation was crafted with great passion by build artist Nick Berg at Ojo Customs. Nick deserves massive credit!

Dana Krystofiak did a masterful job working design around the senseless creative direction foisted upon her.