Art of Peace

AOPCT supports and partakes in small arms and disposal/destruction programs. Properly disposing of or destroying surplus or obsolete small arms and light weapons is important because surplus or obsolete weapons are often stored improperly, making them a public safety threat to the communities in which they are located, are often vulnerable to theft and diversion by criminals, and are a cost-effective and relatively simple way to reduce the threat that they pose. Small arms collection programs reduce the negative consequences of small arms proliferation and misuse because they:

•    Reduce the supply of weapons
•    Prevent weapons from being used in crimes, banditry and social violence
•    Prevent weapons from fueling new conflicts in neighboring areas through gang violence

AOPCT works with various agencies and institutions to facilitate the collection of weapons.  With the assistance of law enforcement and government agencies, hand guns, machine guns, decommissioned nuclear missile casings, land mines, parts of cluster bombs and other arms are amassed, melted down and combined through a unique and proprietary process.  Those melted weapons are then transformed into Peace Angel sculptures – three-foot Emissaries, thirteen-foot Ambassadors and thirty-foot Monuments. Ongoing media broadcasts provide a velocity of effort for all aspects of collecting and melting weapons, and for creating and placing each Emissary, Ambassador and Monument.

Peace Angels will be erected in three cities in the United States – Los Angeles, California; New York, New York; and Washington, D.C.  These cities were selected based on their size, location and national significance.  Los Angeles is the largest city on the West coast, New York City is the largest city on the East coast and Washington, D.C. is the capital of the United States.

The task of creating the thirty-foot Peace Monuments is not accomplished in a short period of time, but is the result of years of work. The political process is important for funding and location. Numerous committee meetings and the efforts by collaborating individuals and organizations allow the sculptures to come to fruition. The following is an overview of the process for creating the Peace Angel sculptures.The creation and installation of a thirty-foot Peace Monument requires several stages, similar to the process that the ancient Greeks used to create historic bronzes, and later, similar to what Michelangelo and other artist luminaries used in creating colossal bronze sculptures during the Renaissance in Italy.  Within the art tradition, these steps are standard for creating a monumental work of art in order to achieve the correct proportion, balance and stability for a massive Monument.A three-foot maquette, called a “Peace Emissary”, will be created as a prototype for the final thirty-foot Monument. It will serve as the basis from which larger sculptures will be ‘enlarged’, using the same steps and mathematical calculations employed by Michelangelo during the Renaissance, and by Rodin in France.Using the Golden Mean and Divine Proportion as a guide to the composition and ratio of the sculpture’s height to its podium that will support the sculpture, the next stage will be the creation of a thirteen-foot sculpture, called the “Peace Ambassador”, which will provide greater detail and refinement of scale and proportions.It will take approximately one year to create each three-foot “Peace Emissary,” two years to create each thirteen-foot “Peace Ambassador” and four years to create each thirty-foot “Peace Monument”.The goal of AOPCT is to melt down 1,000 guns for the Emissaries, 10,000 for the Ambassadors and 100,000 for each Peace Monument, thereby reducing casualties related to firearms by ten percent.The designs for the Peace Angel sculptures for California, New York and Washington, D.C. will be unique to each locale.  The process for creating the sculptures, however, will be the same for each location.

Polich Artworks Foundry

The process of combining the metals from surrendered weapons at the art foundries is a finely tuned and proprietary one.  Since the Emissaries, Ambassadors and Monuments will be made from a specific mixture of weapons, before the metals are forged at the foundry, it will be necessary to develop a precise formula for each Peace Angel sculpture.

Some of the weapons that are collected through law enforcement and government agencies for the Peace Angel sculptures are made of metals which will oxidize when exposed to the elements.  Other collected weapons are made of stainless steel, which does not corrode.  The metals of the weapons must be combined in an exact formula so that the finished sculptures have the patina and weathering capacity that is desired.  In order to accomplish this task, testing of the proprietary formulas will be done at the Corrosion and Metals Research Institute (KIMAB) in Stockholm, Sweden which conducts NASA time-testing for metals that are used in outer space.

It is interesting to note the symbolism of the metals.  Guns are made primarily of a type of steel that rusts (rust symbolizes blood).  The decommissioned nuclear missile casings are primarily made of chromium (which symbolizes skin that heals over wounds).  What the Peace Angels represent is the “blood” of the guns covered in the healing “skin” of the chromium from the processed decommissioned nuclear missile casings.

‘Why’ Statistics:

• Firearms are used in 40% of homicides worldwide.
• Gun violence is one of the two leading cause of death for young people across the United States
• Guns cause more deaths of young people than cancer, AIDS, heart disease or vehicle crashes.
• The prevalence of small arms misuse, both in conflict and crime, contributes to major economic costs, reduced economic opportunities and human suffering.
• The goal of AOPCT is to melt down 1,000 guns for the Emissaries, 10,000 for the Ambassadors and 100,000 for each Peace Monument, thereby reducing casualties related to firearms by ten percent.