Renelio Studio: The Artist, the Model and the Gun

The Artist: I met Ryan S. Lemke years ago while taking a class at Hunter College. Ryan used to work at the sculpture department until late nights. He used to do and still does these highly crafted sculptures made of paper and other ordinary easily found materials that he assembles in meticulous ways with a high degree of attention to detail and that sometimes resembles Lego structured models that usually have a take on mass culture.

One night, while we were both leaving the studios about 4 am; me the painting studio, he the sculpture studio we ran to each other on the way to the elevators. I was walking some steps ahead of him while all of the sudden I heard a noise, like a contained screaming, coming out from behind. I asked him what happened and he told me that somebody, a hand, just came out from the hole on the wall were the mail is to be dropped and tried to grab his knee. I realized that this guy was working way too much and that he was having some kind of mind blowing episode. i realized that he was a true artist, somebody who lives between the real world and the realm of the usually un-accessible.

The Model: I met Tomie Seo while taking a visual class at Hunter. She presented a video there of a play that she staged using a Chinese kind of puppet scenario with little puppet birds that children use there for their children play. The story that she played and recorded was about a bunch of little girls and an ugly old man. The little girl birds where playing and suddenly the old man with grab one of them, throw her on the ground and raped her.

The debate: I'm acquiring this piece from Ryan and get into a conversation with a white American woman about the piece. She is like "don't should find that piece disturbing, that Asian girl holding a gun, why are you getting it?" I'm like " I know these guys and they are very nice people and I don't see anything disturbing about this piece which brings old good memories and which I like." Then we start sparring about gun control: Me: "When I see a bikini clad woman holding a gun or a rifle I see a statement of her vulnerability and her rights to defend herself against male aggression." She is like: " Well, I see it unfair that the law proposed by Obama and that should have been made obligatory on a federal level for gun owners to be registered was voted down." I"m like: I agree but at the same time I think it is a right for people to own guns." A whole discussion ensues that includes the themes of abortion, seat belt measures, etc, all of that thrown by this lady into one basket in a chaotic and unrelated way forcing me to find a way to extricate myself from it.

Other girl enters into the fray and she is like: "Well, I think that emphasis should be put into educating males not to rape women." I'm like: "Yeah, go to India for two weeks without a gun and when you come back let me know what happened."