NEW ORLEANS — Year after year, an artist works to make the number of murders, more than just numbers.
And he takes his display straight to city leaders.
But this year, his display and the reaction it got were different than they were to his efforts in the past.
For eight years, glass visual artist, Mitchell Gaudet, has created a symbol for each person murdered the year before.
Birds, falling leaves, hands, and pistols are among the symbols he’s used.
He displays it for a day each January outside of City Hall. He wants leaders to get the enormity. He wants all of us to be outraged and moved to do something. This year’s symbol was different.
“I wanted a face where it's like the victim, and I wanted it somewhat reflective. So, it's looking at you and you kind of see yourself,” said Mitchell Gaudet, owner of Studio Inferno in Waveland.
This year his work even surprised him when all the symbols could not even fit on his usual size display.
“I just wanted it to spill out at the bottom to show people the terribleness of what's happening,”
And this year, he got a reaction like never before in the past.
“So angry. So frustrated, and felt so betrayed by all the different factors that have allowed this to happen. ‘I'm thinking of moving. I've moved out of the city. I'm here to pay my property tax and what am I paying my property tax for?’” he heard people say. “Just a real anger. This is a more personal thing, or universal disgust at this problem.”
And then he listens as people stop and talk. Here are some of the comments:
“In my time, we didn't have guns. We fought. After the fight, we shook hands and it was over. I don't know where to begin now as a solution.”
“As a kid, I remember not only could my mom discipline me, but my neighbor could.”
“Kids 12,16, what are you doing out at 11:00 and 12:00? If you were a kid and you were out at that time when the street lights come on, you heard the locust chirping, better get inside.”
“It's not like back in the day when I feared the older people in my neighborhood. Now they have no fear.”
“I have a 46-year-old. I have a 41-year-old, and I have a 24-year-old, and I will just bust them for disrespecting me, an elder”
“So, we have to continue fighting, fighting to change something.”
Gaudet says with the high number of shootings already this year, he fears it will get worse. And he already has his symbol picked out for his display in January 2024, a votive candle for each victim.
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