Artwork copyright Peggy Hitchcock. Photo courtesy of Washington State Arts Commission.

This Is A Test It Is Only A Test of The Emergency Broadcast System, 1983

Peggy Hitchcock
(American, born 1951)

Location: Sunnyslope Elementary, Port Orchard

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

This Is A Test It Is Only A Test of The Emergency Broadcast System is an enamel painting by artist Peggy Hitchcock. She notes, "The screen of the upper left TV shows the logo used for Target Seattle, our skyline with a killer rainbow, radiation. The semicircles and angles are stencils. The foremost one reminds me of a shark's dorsal fin, an ominous warning. The threatening shape is counteracted by its sweet decorative pattern. An alarm is made impotent. Precariously, the danger goes unmitigated. The radio sounds the pierce of our regulated emergency buzzer, a modern day Peter Wolf."

Hitchcock created the imagery by applying the colorful enamel using stencils and screen prints. She melted the enamel in layers onto a copper sheet under 1500 degrees. The TVs and boombox radio were made from clipped newspaper ads. She then filled the TV screens with different scenes of disaster and alarm.

This artwork was acquired for the State Art Collection in partnership with South Kitsap School District.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Northwest artist Peggy Hitchcock creates paintings and wall sculptures that explore pattern and form. In most of her artworks, she uses silkscreened and photocopied images based on books, magazines, and other media. She has a library of hundreds of screens that reference history, decorative patterns, the natural world, and much more. Hitchcock explains that part of the beauty of art is that it is "language for our eyes." She grew up in Ohio and has lived and worked in Seattle since the early 1980s.