Genesis Carino remembers what it was like being an East Hampton High School student in an era when mass school shootings were becoming more and more common across the country. Gun violence, like other world events and youthful concerns, shows up often in the poetry she writes.
"The high school had its own issues with bullying. A friend of mine committed suicide around that time. There was a bomb threat once," recalled the 2017 E.H.H.S. graduate. "There was a lot going on those last two years, which influenced a lot of my poetry and my hope for change. It's scary. You don't know -- you hear all these things as a kid and you don't know if there's a way to defend yourself. I don't forget how I felt, and I don't imagine I'm the only one who felt that way. Kids today are becoming more and more scared."
She selected an original poem of hers, titled "Roulette; It's Enough," to read aloud to the 70 or so people in attendance Sunday for the unveiling of the Chair of Hope Project, an art installation at St. Michael's Lutheran Church in Amagansett that cries out against gun violence. Twenty-two chairs -- one for each child and teacher who died in the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Tex., plus one more to represent hope -- have been painted or otherwise decorated, and are on view at the Amagansett church for at least three more weeks.
The chairs themselves were donated by the First Congregational Church of Riverhead and were given to artists to use as a canvas, honoring, through paint and other media, the lives lost to gun violence.
Ms. Carino's "Roulette" poem reads, in part: "How many others need to be lost before we end this possession. Do you remember playing cops and robbers? How ingrained in our culture is it to play with death. That by the time some children hit grade school they have taken their last breaths."
One of the artists, Charles Wildbank of Westhampton, incorporated the image of police caution tape in his work. Describing the chair, he writes, "The future of our children is more crucial than ever as we witness the rise of the population of guns."
Another artist, Violet Useda-Linder of Mamaroneck, taps into the Mexican theme of Dia de Los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. "I was trying to figure out how to convey the tragedy of the loss of a child without only looking at the dark side . . . and not in a way that's macabre. This is so they never disappear."
Yet another vibrant chair, decorated by Vivienne Anton, an East Hampton 8-year-old, expresses that "life is precious . . . the butterfly stands for transformation. The 21 birds are symbols of peace. There are 21 hearts on the arch of the chair to remember the lives lost and that they remain in our hearts forever. The flowers stand for hope and love."
Sunday's impressive turnout "tells me that there are more and more people all the time that are feeling helpless and scared and frustrated, and they want to make a difference," said Kathy Byrnes of East Hampton, who organized the event along with her sister, Patty Cozine, and a friend, Naomi Hogarty, both of Westhampton.
In 2012, after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, Ms. Byrnes got a local tree seller to donate 26 Christmas trees for a community display. The trees were erected at Hook Mill, where people flocked with decorations, creating a moving display of solidarity with the grieving Sandy Hook community.
But the mass shootings obviously did not stop there, and Ms. Byrnes again found herself looking for a way to raise awareness. She hopes that the Chair of Hope Project will become a traveling exhibition and a formal advocacy organization. "We want to be thought-provoking," she said.
Members of the national advocacy group Moms Demand Action, which formed after the Sandy Hook tragedy, attended the event. "There are too many guns and too many people with guns," said Jimmy Dougherty of Bethpage, representing the group. "Get out the vote -- that's what we can do," he said, to effect change.
