OBSESSIVE LOVE DISORDER

This work explores the roots of a colonized, gun-bearing America. The layered and dimensional concepts of human safety and defense sanction a contemporary America ripe with fear, distrust, and a gun addiction. Where the vast motivator for gun ownership is security, Jamie Clyde questions the premise of protection and the origins of gun ownership's inability to shift with a growing country. The work's poignant candor exposes the complexity within a nation constructed with one of the largest military forces in the world. The artwork highlights this sentiment and its permeation into the lives of the American people generation after generation. Jamie weaves the American spirit into the gingham textile, a ubiquitous pattern for culture, customs, and tradition. Yet, the familiar design also reveals duplicity. Within its heritage, it harbors sinister traits of firearm devotion and idolic fanaticism. In sharp contrast to the defense of self and family, ordinary experiences have become threatening in the United States. We stand against giants of our own making, and our communities suffer deeply as mass shootings ensue daily in the land of the free. The repeating ceramic plates with firearms reiterate our broken hearts and urgency for resolve while ventilating the profound truth of the American gun obsession.