Shot Full of Holes

1997

47" x 39"

Cotton cloth shot full of holes, bullet casings, and trinkets; machine pieced and quilted, hand embellished

This quilt is my response to Mildred Trivers' powerful poem, "Guns".  After months of thinking I realized that the poem is not about guns.  It is about what guns do.  They shoot things and people full of holes.  I chose to make this from soft cotton and it is the size of a quilt for a baby.  The dangling bullet casings often make a pleasant tinkling sound.

This was made for the 1997 "Humpback Barn Festival of Poetry and Art".  Local artists responded to poems by Muncie area poets.

GUNS

When in the course of time I consider

how Time has given us guns to murder

most easily and cleanly, most eficiently

loved ones and those with whom we disagree,

the semi-automatic in the street,

for boudoir the pistol small and neat,

for family use the household gun

that can shoot father, mother, daughter, son

Then I think the N.R.A. quite right

to fight

with all its might

for our inalienable right

to bear the gu

we need to kill,

to shoot, to murder

whom we will

                 Mildred Raynolds Trivers

Art Quilts by Barbara Moll