I’ve been working with Felix Lucero for a few months now.
Felix is a painter, woodworker, sculptor, handyman… you name it. (As he’s fond of saying, you work in different media long enough, they all start to run together.) His latest sculpture is a 7′ assault rifle cross, made from plastic “kids” guns he purchased at the local dollar store. Yes, they still work:
The day I met him, he told me about the assault rifle cross.
He was already months into it. Like most people would, I think I pictured a standard Christ-on-a-few-slabs type of cross. Except, you know, made of toy guns. This… is not that. This is more the cross Columbus would have held between him and the Tainos. Its heart is a sniper scope with a mirror, pricked on four sides with plastic swords. Its circle is made whole with wooden high-capacity magazines. It rests on three plastic Glocks, which look eerily like a chicken’s foot.
When it was installed last weekend at Los Jardines Institute, everyone said the same thing. It’s intense. It was rejected by another group in town—who that morning were actually melting down guns into farm equipment—for fear it would offend certain Christians. Personally, I think Erik Prince leaves a much blacker eye than Felix. (Side note: Ever wonder when exactly Christ turned into a thug? There’s an excellent episode of Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History just for you.)
Heavy a symbol as it is, it’s hard to deny the assault rifle cross embraces the four directions. As with all great art, Felix’s cross is complicated. It refuses imbalance.
When I asked how he got the idea, he said he didn’t remember. But when it came into his head, it was complete. The only work left was to build.
See more of Felix’s work on his Facebook.
Powerful.