Cindy Baker
Lipstick Bullets
Handmade lipstick in found bullet casings
9mm or .45 caliber
$20
Everyone I know is getting Lipstick Bullets in their stockings this year - Cindy Baker’s artist edition of handmade lipsticks in found bullet casings, with a choice of 9mm or .45 caliber and available in 21 shades of pink, red, blue, green and purple.
Cindy Baker began collecting lipsticks and bullets, interested in their visual similarity, yet representing opposite ends of the gender socialization spectrum. In further research, she found that the histories of lipsticks and bullets were more entwined that she ever could have imagined:
“Lipstick factories making bullets. Bullet factories making lipsticks. Factories that produce both lipsticks and bullets which shift during the war to producing only bullets. Factories that produce bullets during the war which shift to producing lipsticks after the war. People pretending to make lipsticks in order to covertly make bullets. Lipstick tubes recycled into bullet casings. Lipstick sold wrapped in paper to save brass for bullet casings. Used bullet casings saved during the war for makeshift lipstick cases. Unused bullet casings factory-crimped into lipstick cases. Bullet factory workers encouraged to wear lipstick. Free lipstick provided by cosmetics companies to bullet factory workers. Creation of demand for lipstick by newly-out-in-the-workforce women. Creation of demand for lipstick by women whose men have returned home and taken over their jobs. Bullet-shaped lipstick swivel tubes. Lipstick-shaped bullets.”
Lipstick Bullets represent an opportunity to put a bullet to your lips while considering their complicated history.
Michelle Schultz is the Director of dc3 Art Projects in Edmonton, Canada and the newly-founded Bookshop, a shop within the gallery dedicated to visual arts publications. Bookshop focuses on national and international artist books, magazines and editions, and hosts book launches, readings and events.
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