Tween Sparks Gun Control Talk Through Artwork

Eleven-year-old Charles Gitnick is an avid gun collector for his age, but he’ll never be spotted at a shooting range, mainly because his weapons are replicas and secondly, he uses them as a mode of expression.

While most kids his age rely on mom and dad for an allowance, the Sierra Canyon School student makes a living selling his carefully crafted artworks that camouflage copies of real-life firearms in a background of abstract colors.

Masters like Jackson Pollock, Basquiat and Andy Warhol developed as his influences when Charles started getting into art around the age of four five. It was around two years ago when he wanted to make a name for himself and gained inspiration from news headlines that seemed to be mostly made up of shootings and other violent crimes.

Although he describes himself as anti-gun, Charles says his goal isn’t to get people to agree with his view.

“My feelings about guns are that they are scary and dangerous,” he said, adding: “Hopefully my art will get people talking about guns, gun safety and gun violence. I wish guns were only in an art gallery.”

Charles stuck with his project and eventually started churning out pieces that were good enough to be sold in Culver City, the Venice boardwalk and even on the sidewalks of New York City where he recently made more than $1,500. So far, he’s sold 47 from his line of “gun art.”

There seemed to be no shortage of motivation until last December during the time of the tragic Sandy Hook school shooting that claimed 27 lives.

Charles’ father, Neil Gitnick, said his son went on an unheard of 18-day withdrawal from making art in their home studio.

“He didn't want to make anymore art with guns in it because he didn’t want people in any way to think he’s supporting guns after what had happened,” Neil Gitnick said, adding: “What I told him was right now, when something like that is really timely, you should more than ever be making the art, because if he hopes to have any kind of affect on the issue, maybe the only thing he can do is keep it present and cause a dialogue.”

The only other roadblock Charles has encountered is something many artists in the spotlight have to cope with: criticism.

“At first, the haters got to him, he would cry,” Neil Gitnick said.

But just like how some parents give their kids advice on how to stand up to bullies, Charles’ folks gave him the thick skin to understand that you can’t win them all.

“We talked to him about how there’s people that that love his art and pay good money for it, then there are also people who hate his art and he's going to have to live with the existence of both,” Neil Gitnick said. “He’s past it now.”

And Charles says he’s OK if his friends and classmates don’t quite understand the meaning of his work.

“They’ve seen some of it, some of my friends don’t really get it, but they’re really happy for me,” he said.

Charles has created more than 100 of his gun art pieces and plans on making more for the time being, though he’s not sure if that will be the main focus for the rest of his career.

“It could be a thing that I do forever or it could be a thing that I’m going to do for a couple of years, but I’m for sure always going to be doing art,” he said.