Artist Shoots Artwork

Many of the pieces at the latest show at Creative Arts Workshop push at the boundaries of what printmaking can do; among those are works by Kim Tester, like Witness Tree — Do It Again. For Tester, the piece was​“a one-of-a-kind experiment,” focused,​“obviously, on the state of gun violence” in the U.S.​“I printed an edition, then took a proof and shot at it with several guns that a friend had on his farm. He walked me through the process and helped me when the shotgun’s kickback was too much for my body. I was surprised that it took so many bullets to create so little damage to an inanimate object, yet one bullet kills a living thing so quickly and completely. The Sandy Hook school shooting was two years prior and took place 20 minutes from my town, where first responders, who I still see, went there to help. It was on my mind for this work.”