The statistics on gun violence in the U.S. are unprecedented. Every day in America, there are 35 gun homicides, 60 gun suicides, and 200 people who survive getting shot. 21 of the 25 deadliest mass shootings in the U.S. have occurred since 1980. There were 64 school shootings and 372 mass shootings in the U.S. in 2015.

Is it time for a new approach and a fresh dialogue?

Gallery owner and artist Jonathan Ferrara and artist Brian Borrello, have 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.

The exhibition, and eponymous book, fosters a new conversation by bringing the discussion into the realm of art. Ferrara says, “It’s a multi-perspective, sensible conversation about guns and gun violence. Forty percent of the artists in the exhibition own guns and 40 percent of the artists in the exhibition have been victims of gun violence. This is not anti-gun. This is about having a frank and honest conversation that we’re not able to really do because of the politicized and polarized nature of the issue.”

Please let me know if you would like to set up an interview with Jonathan Ferrara on December 7, 8, 13, or 14. Select essayists may also be available.

Guns in the Hands of Artists includes essays by:

· Renowned writer and managing editor of TIME Magazine, Walter Isaacson

· Senator Tim Kaine

· Rapper and record producer Lupe Fiasco

· Award-winning novelist Richard Ford

· New York Times writer Joe Nocera

· Actor and comedian Harry Shearer

· Mayor Mitchell J. Landrieu

· Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords

· And many more

The 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.

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