By: Alicia Chen

Tiona goes to the shooting range every week, but avoids the weekends, where lots of men are firing assault-type guns, possibly causing sensory overload.

Many Americans do this frequently and it is a familiar activity to them, but for an artist, not so much. At first, she didn’t buy a membership and go to the shooting range for art. Eventually, though, that changed.

Safety and self-defense were her top concerns after the violence against George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter uprising.

She was greeted by the staff warmly. She trained there and eventually earned a membership. She brought paper targets including pink silhouettes and multiple bulls-eye targets. She had three handguns. A Walther .22, a Glock, and a Smith & Wesson.

“Every bullet that I load, I’m breathing through it,” she said, “I’m adjusting to being in the space. There’s a protocol.”

It wasn’t meant for art, but art happened anyway. Her famous exhibition, “Mask/Conceal/Carry” came from the shooting range.

On McClodden’s desk, atop a pile of books, was “Unmasking Autism,” a work by psychologist Devon Price. In 2001, her doctor said that she was on the range of developing autism, but she swatted the idea away.

But eighteen years later, she received a diagnosis. It was costly and took time.

“I hid for a long time,” she said. Her symptoms included nonverbal periods, overstimulation, and confrontational problems. She struggled with these problems while making art. Her autism used to be a problem, but now it helps her. “I’ve decided to match my lived experience as a person with autism, at the intersection of a lot of identities, as a constant state of discomfort,” she continued, “So the work has to be uncomfortable.”

When she shoots, the noises and bangs in the range were initially uncomfortable, stressful, and overwhelming. “My sensory issues sent me out of the range,” she said, “I couldn’t get the sound off my skin.”

She also started doing dry firing in her studio, which is basically firing without ammunition. After she shoots, a phone app measured data from a node on the gun. After that, she just traces it out with paint.

“You use thumb tacks, Tiona uses a razor blade,” said Sadie Barnette, who was friends with Tiona when they were still in school. McClodden talks about her edge, “I’ve worked on some of my difficulty,” she said, “because I had to understand what it is.”

Tina’s work is truly incredible. Some people see a bunch of lines in different colors and maybe even some squiggles in her art, but others see something more complicated, something more beautiful.