Gun Sculpture of Phoenix
Robert John Miley created this sculpture with old firearms. Photo Credit: Sam Lowe
PHOENIX – It took Robert John Miley more than a decade to turn guns into art. The result is a sculpture that rises above a small park at the corner of Roosevelt Street and Central Avenue in downtown Phoenix. Miley spent 11 years acquiring the land, material and manpower needed to create the work. The statue, which resembles a man lifting his arms skyward, is made of steel and weighs 17,000 pounds. Four tons of the material came from guns that were once used in the commission of violent acts.
The guns were confiscated by law enforcement agencies across Arizona, then donated to Miley when they heard about his project. They were melted down and recast, some of them back into the shape of guns that make up the base of the statue. Miley used students and criminals as his work force. The youngsters came from neighborhood schools; the convicts were members of chain gangs who volunteered to help. “The sculpture became a symbol of how we can transform anything into something good,” Miley said.
His work was not immediately accepted. One fellow artist noted that it “looks like Gumby,” but he also commended the piece later.
It may look like a man raising his hands in surrender, or Gumby, but it also looks like the barrel sight on a rifle. Did R.J. Miley give a name to this sculpture?
What a pathetic cringing sclupture. Arms raised in surrender, indeed.
Pack this “artist” back off to Massachusetts or England or under whatever fearful gun-phobic rock he crawled out from under…
He’s from Phoenix.
I don’t see this sculpture as “arms raised in surrender”. I see it as something like the Phoenix rising from the ashes – or, in this case, a clean, shining form rising upward from the remnants of the tools of crime. To emphasize, it’s not a statement about guns, it’s a statement about *crime*, and there is nothing cringing about it as it escapes in a stretch toward the sun. Sleek and shiny modernism isn’t really my preferred style of art, but this works for me. I think Mr. Miley did just fine.