By Lisa Sullivan Ballew and Kristen Byrne
Editor’s note: One in a series of posts from The Art of Words exhibit, which ran in the gallery of Follow Your Art Community Studios in November 2021. For this collaborative exhibit, FYACS writers and artists in residence exchanged words and art, prompting each other to respond with something new.
Prompt
Wyoming
by Lisa Sullivan Ballew
And when she accomplished that, she went
further still, until ten miles in the shade-free,
dry heat felt like nothing to her. And it was
nothing, sort of; When there was nothing else to
do except clean guest cabins and nose through personal effects; shoot the shit with the wranglers
and cabin girls; drink leftover table wine; smoke bummed cigarettes; read; and draw the Wind River that rolled across the land, splicing the ranch in half.
—from the writer’s novel-in-progress.
Response
Wyoming
by Kristen Byrne
Prompt
Spectrum of Light
by Kristen Byrne
Response
Spectrum of Light
by Lisa Sullivan Ballew
If you’re curious about the electromagnetic spectrum, the 1994 R.E.M. song “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?” is no place to start, but it might be a good place to end. In 1986 Dan Rather was famously asked by two unknown assailants, “Kenneth, what’s the frequency?” in a bizarre case of mistaken identity. In the public imagination (or just the imagination of front man Michael Stipe) the eponymous question had grown to mythic proportions.
The year the song came out, Dan Rather’s assailant struck again, this time fatally shooting an NBC stagehand outside of Rockefeller Center. Upon arrest he told police that the news media was broadcasting messages directly to him. In asking the anchorman for “the frequency,” he was attempting to intercept their transmission.
In fact, a “frequency” is the number of times an electromagnetic wave, like a radio or television transmission, vibrates per second. Red is the longest wave at the lowest frequency that is visible to humans. Infrared light, which follows red on the spectrum, is invisible unless, of course, you’re that sicko Buffalo Bill in the penultimate scene of Silence of the Lambs in a dark basement stalking Clarice Starling like prey. Who could forget those infrared goggles?
Lisa Sullivan Ballew is a recovering attorney, a wife, and a mother of two irrepressible youngsters. She has previously been published in The Boston Globe, WBUR’s Cognoscenti blog, Women’s Running, and Defenestration Magazine online. Somewhere, right now, she is working hard on her first novel. She is also a Writer in Residence at Follow Your Art Community Studios.
Kristen Byrne is an Artist in Residence at Follow Your Art Community Studios.
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