Entangled Frequency

9' x 4' triptych.

Charcoal, Graphite, Oil, Acrylic, Venetian Plaster, found objects from the Symphony, and colored pencil contributions from the audience.

Created live on stage over two sold-out nights, roughly 1,100 people each night, at the Bozeman Symphony's season finale, "Sounds of America III: Appalachian Spring." The artwork Entangled Frequency captures a hopeful view of America's future through bringing people together.

During rehearsals, I developed the painting's textural base and movement, purposely keeping it cold, black, and white, and imposing. It was rising somewhere, but unsure yet where it was going. During the first night of the performance, I asked myself, what is this becoming? By night two, I asked, what has been made, and am I willing to stand by it?

The performance opened with John Adams's "The Chairman Dances," a foxtrot for orchestra Adams composed as an outtake while working on his opera "Nixon in China." The piece captures Emperor Mao and his wife breaking into dance in front of the American delegation, a traditionally and circumstantially authoritarian figure revealing, if only for a moment, a part of him that wants to be free and expressive. That internal and external misalignment is what I see in the piece, and it's what set the tone for the evening: a look at structures, institutions, and organizations vying for control and authority, while the people within them carry a drive to be free and expressive.

For the painting, I moved into that uncertainty. The canvas stayed black and white, imposing, moving toward the center with no specific place it was leading, yet movement was taking shape silently, color developing even if unseen from far away.

The second and third pieces of the program swapped places during rehearsals, which meant the storyline I had built for the evening had to shift with them. What emerged instead felt more honest than the original plan.

Aaron Copland's beloved "Appalachian Spring" became the second piece in the program. This masterwork evokes hope, renewal, and enduring optimism during the hard final days of World War II. I look to this piece as a perspective necessary within the destabilization and unease felt by many of us during this time we exist within. A young couple comes to a new town during the piece; through it, they find beauty and peace in shared human connection, stripping back from the noise to find what is pure in love. This is how I see the beauty of America, through our shared human connection across all backgrounds, perspectives, and beliefs.

For the painting itself, the snow began to melt away, a sky began to form, a sun began to rise, giving shape to an Appalachian spring. The viewer is running across it; the horizon is on the other side; we are not there yet, but through stewarding toward the right direction, we can find hope and renewal. The darkness is still visible; it is not erased or denied, but it is no longer the overwhelming center.

By intermission, the painting had already found its color and its horizon. I brought a panel into the audience and asked them to write something they see as beautiful about America, bringing in the perspectives and energies of all those who wished to contribute to the creation of the painting. Their answers moved toward the now hopeful center of the piece.

After intermission, my portion of the program ended with Symphony No. 3 by Roy Harris, and its role in the painting was different from what came before it. It didn't add a new question, and it didn't undo what had already been found. Instead, it gave the piece room to breathe. I stepped back from finishing the thought myself and let what already existed settle and develop, giving the audience space to sit with the answer rather than watch me deliver one. The piece ended in a place open to interpretation, abstract but speaking toward hope, giving each viewer a chance to ask and answer their own questions within it.

This painting and my participation in the symphony are a part of my ongoing Entanglement Series, a multi-institutional artistic participatory collaboration at the intersection of art, research, and human connection. Starting at QCORE, Montana State University's Quantum research center, the series is actively expanding and crossing into spaces such as performing arts, entrepreneurship, policy, and government.

Thank you to the Bozeman Symphony for everything, for your generosity, for allowing me to perform alongside you. And thank you to everyone who came to the performance itself; your kindness shaped the night into something I can always cherish.

Entangled Frequency is currently on display and is available to be viewed and purchased upon request. Contact: schnepfstudio@gmail.com for inquiries.