Feature Friday: Trans, Lesbian, Agender, Pride Frequencies

Last year, I got this idea to express the Pride flag colors as a frequency. No idea where the idea came from, but I thought it was interesting and made Pride Frequency № 1 and then Trans Frequency № 1 (see below). I used vitreous glass, cut in strips and laid on its side.

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(2019) Pride Frequency № 1. 7” x 9” | 18cm x 23cm. Vitreous glass, colored cement.

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(2019) Trans Frequency № 1. 8” x 11” | 20cm x 28cm. Vitreous glass, colored cement.

After making these, I wanted to make a few more but I did not want to use vitreous. I wanted to find a better way of executing them because there were some issues with these first two.

I was not completely happy with the variations in the thickness of the pieces, primarily the result of being from different manufacturers or batches. Also, it is difficult to get a level bottom when cutting into strips and trimming off the miter. And I just wanted a straighter line.

So, I thought about using Kismet glass. I had used some on a previous project and felt that it was much better suited for this concept.

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(2020) Lesbian Frequency № 3. 9.5” x 11.5” | 24cm x 29cm. Kismet glass, colored cement. 

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(2020) Trans Frequency № 3. 9.5” x 11.5” | 24cm x 29cm. Kismet glass, colored cement.

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(2020) Agender Frequency 9.5” x 11.5” | 24cm x 29cm. Kismet glass, colored cement.

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Pride Frequency № 2. 9.5” x 11.5” | 24cm x 29cm. Kismet glass, colored cement.

After making the LGBTQ-themed pieces, I wanted to further explore the frequency concept and decided to do so with emotional states. Hence, my Interior Frequencies.

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Interior Frequencies (2020) 31” x 68” | 79cm x 173cm. Each 9” x 12” | 23cm x 30 cm. Kismet glass, colored cement. Left to right: Depression, Invisible, Guilt, Hopeless, Conflicted, Self-loathing, Shame, Dread, Rage, Loss, Humiliation, Overwhelmed.

Interior Frequencies, in situ

I made a space to hang this work in my studio area. It was a bit of a challenge to work out the measurements. I must have done a good job as they were all in their places on my first try.

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Interior Frequencies

Previous Interior Frequencies posts

Several people have asked me why I was just doing negative, or sad, or dark emotions. In trying to answer them, I kept struggling for the proper word for these kinds of emotions because I did not resonate with negative, sad, or dark. What they are is uncomfortable, I realized.

These uncomfortable emotions are more interesting to me than comfortable ones. We don’t have to work to recognize, understand, and navigate our comfortable emotions, like joy for example. In this series, I wanted to examine the color and movement—frequency pattern—of my own experience of these emotions.

Using just vertical lines and color to express complicated emotions was, by the end, very limiting, although at first it was quite liberating.

Generally, as I approached these interior states, I recognized a difference between ones that are more inward, like guilt and self-loathing, and ones that have an outward aspect, like loss and rage. I used shorter lines for the frequencies that are more inward and longer lines for the ones with some outward aspect.

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Interior Frequencies № 5: Depression Not having suffered from depression, I worked with my younger daughter to understand how to express it. The ochre spurt just left of center represents a pang of self-loathing, and the one bright yellow spot to the right signifies a brief moment of joy. The very short frequency lines speak to a sense of non-existence.

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Interior Frequencies № 4: Invisible My sense of being invisible is that I am there but I feel that people are not seeing me—not seeing the person that I am. Maybe I am just feeling like I don’t belong so I shrink into the background and invite being ignored. Or maybe they are just relating to me as someone I am not and never have been. The frequency lines are short here because feeling invisible is very private and makes me feel small.

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Interior Frequencies № 11: Guilt Guilt feels green to me. It is an interior state that I try to evade and rationalize. I may be able to intellectualize my way around it for a period of time, but it always comes back, just eating away at me. Short lines represent this very inward and private state.

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Interior Frequencies № 10: Hopeless This one speaks for itself.

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Interior Frequencies № 7: Conflicted In my limited experience of feeling conflicted, I’ve found myself going back and forth between two things for which I have equal intensity of feeling. I chose these colors because they feel emotionally pensive to me.

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Interior Frequencies № 3: Self-loathing I set out to select the worst color palette that I could mange. I wanted it to be pukey, like vomit, to represent an intense feeling of disgust. I actually found it difficult to create an ugly palette. The frequency iines are relatively short but unrelenting, just like self-loathing.

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Interior Frequencies № 8: Shame The colors felt like shame feels. Shame is deeper than humiliation and more than just feeling ashamed. It is an insidious thing that is inflicted by others. It affected my sense of self-worth, of value, of feeling like I deserve to exist. Until it is recognized and understood, it grows and seeps into all other areas of life.

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Interior Frequencies № 9: Dread It was difficult to feel the colors of dread, but I eventually chose these and I do find them dreadful. As for the frequency pattern, I experience dread as a feeling that pulsates, retreating into the background and then resurfacing, over and over.

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Interior Frequencies № 2: Rage I did not achieve that of out-of-control, blinding kind of rage, but I think this feels more rage-y to me than mere anger. The colors are self-explanatory. The lines are long because rage has a big outward expression. The black in the middle represents my inner state at the time, which virtually does not exist.

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Interior Frequencies № 1": Loss I found these colors easy to choose as they feel like loss as I have experienced it. The lines are long because of loss’s outward expression. At the height of it, I feel like I have lost part/s of myself, represented by the missing pieces. This sense continues but diminishes with time.

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Interior Frequencies № 6: Humiliation This emotion has both a strong outward experience and inward experience for me. When I feel humiliated, I try to hide it and remain cool on the outside, but inside I feel like the red snake of it is burning me up.

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Interior Frequencies № 12: Overwhelmed Not sure about the colors. At this point, with this being the last one, I was having trouble feeling the color of overwhelmed. I think several palettes would have worked. Perhaps even more contrasting colors. This state feels like it has an outward expression. For me, it comes on pretty suddenly; maybe it is simmering for some time without me being conscious of it, or it is the immediate onslaught of particular circumstances.

Interior Frequencies № 12: Overwhelmed

I never thought it could be so much fun to not keep a line straight!

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Interior Frequencies № 12: Overwhelmed, side perspective

And so this series comes to an end.

Interior Frequencies № 11: Guilt

Why green? I have no idea. It is the color that I associate with guilt, which I did not know until I now. What about you?

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Interior Frequencies № 11: Guilt, side perspective

The next and last one will be Overwhelmed.

Interior Frequencies № 10: Hopeless

As I am nearing the end of this work, I have the opportunity to view the pieces together and see how they can be arranged to achieve the greatest degree of balance and aesthetic interest. With the last three, I am yielding to a desire for that balance and aesthetic interest in deciding on the colors.

So, I find that as much as I wanted to not be attached to an outcome, I am now being influenced by some kind of desired outcome. Just a little. Also, throughout the process, I so often wanted to use blacks and grays, but I forced myself to try harder to express the emotions in varying colors. Black was a problem for me because of the black background, which I wanted for all twelve.

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Interior Frequencies № 10: Hopeless, side perspective

I’ve got some other musings on the fruitfulness, and/or lack thereof, of this project, which I will share at the end. And I will be happy to be at the end of this project.

Next: Guilt.

Interior Frequencies № 9: Dread

Dreadful.

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Interior Frequencies № 9: Dread, side perspective

Next up: Hopeless.

Interior Frequencies № 8: Shame

Now that I am nearing the end of the series—four more to go—I am thinking about how to arrange them as a group of 12. More importantly, I don’t think that I can get the lighting the same for each of them, and the lighting really affects the black background. Hmm… I’ll have to ponder that.

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Interior Frequencies № 8: Shame, side perspective

Next is Dread.

Interior Frequencies № 7: Conflicted

So, in my experience of feeling conflicted, which has not been much, I’ve found myself going back and forth between two things for which I have equal intensity of feeling. The intensity of feeling is so equal that the two things almost feel like one thing, making it difficult to separate them and finally choose.

I chose these colors because they feel emotionally pensive to me.

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Interior Frequencies № 7: Conflicted, side perspective

My next one will be Shame.

Interior Frequencies № 6: Humiliation

Hmm. I wish I could explain this. Again, I am just going with what feels right at the time. This was going to be Shame, but it felt more like Humiliation.

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Interior Frequencies № 6: Humiliation, side perspective

The next one will be Conflicted.

Interior Frequencies № 5: Depression

I’ve not suffered from depression myself, so I relied on my younger daughter’s experience to guide me on this one. The dark ochre bump represents a pang of self-loathing, and the small yellow speck represents a brief bit of joy.

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Interior Frequencies № 5: Depression, side perspective

I’m treating this series like an assignment. I allow no more than a week to finish each one, I’m using this linear frequency-like format, and I’m using a single type of glass and its palette. This is a very restrictive approach that is—surprisingly—giving me a lot of freedom.

For example, the next one is Shame. I went to choose the glass and tried to work out a palette with reds, pink, bright green, which I thought were the proper colors. But it just did not feel right. Instead, I chose a cool palette of purple, blue, teal, and bright green. It jus felt right to me at that time. So, I went with it.

Then, I started designing the lines, and I was a little stuck. I gave it another try and came up with something that felt right, that made sense to me. Because of the time limit, I made myself just go with it. I know that it may not look like shame to anyone else, but I’ve given myself permission to just go with what comes to me. It’s really liberating.

Whatever this exercise produces, I’m feeling like it is a very good experience for me.

So, on to № 6, Shame. I have decided to do 12, so I am halfway there.

Interior Frequencies № 4: Invisible

Previous Interior Frequencies posts

Not much to say about this one.

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Interior Frequencies № 4: Invisible, side perspective

Now, on to Depression.

Interior Frequencies № 3: Self-Loathing

Previous Interior Frequencies posts

This one was the most fun so far! I wanted a palette that was ugly, actually pukey. That’s right, inspired by vomit. What can I say? When I think of self-loathing, I think of vomit. Or maybe it just makes me feel sick. Not sure. Self-loathing is a very ugly thing, an internal disgust with ourselves that roils within. If only we could just vomit it out.

Well, my apologies for going off in such an unpleasant direction this morning. About the lines, or frequency waves: I can’t offer any kind of meaning or symbolism; I just went with how I was feeling when I created the design.

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Interior Frequencies № 3: Self-Loathing, side perspective

Next up: Invisible

Interior Frequency № 2: Rage

Previous Interior Frequencies posts

What color(s) does rage feel like to you? These reds and black are one version of rage. But there is a kind of white, blinding rage that I am still thinking about. With the palette that I have, I’m not sure yet if I can express that. But I may end up trying. Eventually.

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Interior Frequencies № 2: Rage, side perspective

Now, I’m moving on to Self-Loathing.

Interior Frequencies

All Interior Frequencies posts.

Interior Frequencies is a sub-series of my Frequency Series. I wanted to explore emotional states using this simple linear format and the Kismet palette. I’m using Kismet because it is well-suited to this linear approach and has a fairly good palette. Cutting it in half and placing it on its side offers a smalti-like reflective quality.

I am interested in the exercise of expressing challenging emotional states in such a minimal way. My goal is to just do this for myself, for the exercise of it, and not to produce something that I think is beautiful. This is quite a different thing for me and I am relishing operating outside my usual box.

Interior Frequencies will be a single work comprising of a maximum of 12 pieces. Or maybe 9. Or maybe 6. No less than 6. We’ll just see how things go.

Here is the first in the series, titled Loss. Next up is rage.

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Interior Frequencies № 1: Loss, side perspective

Five Frequencies

All Frequency Series Posts

Here are all five of the LGBTQ+-themed frequecies I’ve just finished up, all based on LGBTQ+ flag colors.

Trans Frequency № 2

Other Frequency Series posts

This one is the last of my LBGTQ+ themed frequencies. It is quite amazing how it is not easy to keep a line straight in mosaic. I’m pretty good with line but still found it challenging to keep the ends of the lines straight—that last piece would often end up being slightly off, and I would not see it until I was in the finishing stage.

Next, I’m going to take a little time to do a few small decorative mirrors, and then I am going to focus on a group of frequency pieces that will make up a single work, each one expressing a challenging interior emotion. I want to explore my own emotional states through line and color. The single work will be 9-12 mosaics.

Pride Frequency № 2

Other Frequency Series posts

This is the fourth in a group of five. The fifth will be another Trans Frequency.

Is there any perfect glass? I very much like the Kismet for this purpose. It is a good size and thickness, and it comes in a fairly good range of colors and shades. Some of the colors are quite vivid, like the red, yellow, and blue in this piece. The purple is pretty typical of the kind of purple in other lines of glass. Unfortunately, the orange was a bit muted and soft, so I went with this tangerine, which is a little brighter but not exactly orange. The green, as well, is not as bright as I would have liked, a little grayish, wouldn’t you say? Ah well, I’m sticking with the Kismet.

I’m still experimenting with the texture of the background. The challenge is to have the spaces between the lines be consistent with the rest of it. Not entirely consciously, they have gotten more textured as I have gone. So far, I do not have a favorite degree of texture, but I feel the need to settle on one before I start on the next, larger, Frequency sub-series that will take me into summer.

Frequency Series: Agender

Just finished this one up. I’m still figuring out how to get a consistent background between the outer area and the small spaces between the lines. They seem to be getting more and more textured as I go.

The background is dark gray, you’re not imagining it. I had to go lighter than my usual black because of the black stripes on the ends. And I could not go too light with the gray background because of the gray stripes.

Did I mention that I have been volunteering at the Dennis R Neill Equality Center, here in Tulsa, for over a year now? They have an annual juried art exhibition that I have participated in a couple of times in the past years. I am making these, well, for fun, but also in hopes of having them in this year’s show.

Lesbian Frequency № 3

This version of the Lesbian flag—the right-most 5-stripe flag — was easier to represent with the Kismet color palette than my first Lesbian Frequency was, and I am happier with this one. So how did I get to № 3 all of sudden? Lesbian Frequency № 2 is similar smaller version of № 3 that I made for my daughter.

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Image credit: Wikipedia

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Lesbian Frequency № 3, alternate view