Jicky Schnee; The Schumann Resonance

Jicky Schnee in the Mother; Nature exhibition

The Schumann Resonance

Nymphaeas and the Schumann Resonance series

In this series, I used Monet’s commercialized Nymphaeas series (made exactly 100 years ago) as both a springboard and illustration of our global environmental abuse, slashing the canvases as we have our natural world. With their metallic surface, these cuts were created as an expression of Schumman Resonances which regulate both the earth and humans. These cuts and sewn and mended in hope, as our dependence on earth is not only physical and material but also physiological.

Often called ‘the earth’s heartbeat’, Schumann resonances are global electromagnetic resonances generated by lightning discharges in the cavity formed betweem the earth's surface and the ionosphere. The resonant modes or spectrum peaks within the Schumann resonance are between 7.83Hz and 45 Hz, while the fundamental Schumann Resonance is a standing wave in the atmosphere around 8 Hz. Human brainwaves are entrained to this
pulse as a reciprocal system between human bodies and the earth function as a phase-locked loop in which the Schumann Resonance signal provides a brain frequency range matching the electromagnetic signal. Interestingly, 7.83 Hz is an alpha/theta brainwave frequency that creates a relaxed, dreamy, sleepy state, in which cell regeneration and healing happens. Also significantly, the hippocampal wave, which exerts a decisive influence on brain function and long term memory, shares the same frequency as the primary Schumann Resonance – 7.8Hz

Amazing Grace
ceramic, pine boxes, plexi-glass, paper, rope, twine
2021-2023

This work comes from a dream in which I wore a giant necklace made out of a rope and on it were hanging items that at the time I used on a daily basis: a hammer, a key, a rolling pin, a
soup spoon, a baby bottle, a rattle, a comb, a bell, an artist’s brush, and a pair of scissors. The rope was very heavy but despite its weight I dragged this necklace around my neck and up onto a pedestal where I stood and sang the song ‘amazing grace’ in a long white dress.

It can be concluded without difficulty that each item represents an aspect of a way in which I
am and have been weighed down. The rolling pin and soup spoon are me as head chef, the
bottle, the rattle and the comb as nurturer, entertainer, and overseer of personal hygiene.
The bell, I am the time-keeper who keeps things on schedule, the scissors and hammer, as chief fixer and builder. The artist’s brush, notably the only item that I use independently of family life, is the small space given to my career. And finally the key, the keeper of home. What was most interesting to me about this dream was the fact that I hauled myself up onto a podium and stood to sing Amazing Grace. Grace in an amazing quantity is required each day to raise healthy, well adjusted children. They do need someone (and it can very well be a man) to nurture, to give physical care, to give mental care, to fix, to act as chief clown, to organize and order, creating a pleasurable structure that is the template for happy living. But what is equally interesting to me is that the song Amazing Grace originated as a rebuke to the institution of slavery.

Like so many women before me, I have often felt indentured. And when I have expressed this, it has often been pointed out to me that these choices were mine to make. And this is, happily, true. But it is also true that this effort in motherhood extracts and has extracted a price.

In making this piece, I had originally wanted to re-enact the dream, and while singing, detach each ceramic piece and drop them to a shattered demise. Yet as my children are older now, more grown and independent, I no longer feel the need to break a rattle, a soup-spoon, a key. Instead each of these items is placed in a box as a gift, memorialized as the effort of parenthood, a job that has required amazing grace but has also provided me with amazing growth.

ceramic, pine boxes, paper, plexi-glass, rope, twine
2021-2023
3000$

Seven
Montessori Pink Tower, printed script, 2023

As a child, the Montessori tower of pink blocks was my favorite work-station. I found the ordered and sequential building of these cubes into a tower enormously satisfying. As an adult, looking at the purpose of the exercise of the pink tower, they are a series of ten blocks that increase in size by one cubic centimeter per block and are meant to help children gain a sense of length, width, height, weight and
sequence.

This work is a combination of a pink tower, sequencing, and various series existing with the number 7.

Seven is an auspicious number that has many symbolic meanings in spirituality, mythology, and psychology, simultaneously symbolizing
countless elements in human civilization. There are seven colors of the rainbow, seven chakras, seven days of the week, seven continents, and seven wonders of the world. The number seven is featured extensively in Christianity and other religions. And the number seven forms the basis of the western musical diatonic scale.

Each of these blocks marks a seven-year period of life—the supposed period of time in which it takes the human body to regenerate all new cells. (In actuality, this time period has been most recently calculated to be 7-10 years depending on the type of cell) On each of the six sides of each cube are placed words from series’ of sevens that describe my own growth. Some I chose to put as they have been historically ordered as a challenge to the original order, to see if this felt to me to describe that era of my life—and often the natural order did seem to align with my own development. Others I rearranged in order to appoint the word in each series that most described my own experience during that time.

The series’ that I used include
The 7 of series in number
The 7 deadly sins
The 7 heavenly virtues
The 7 stages of grief ( per Elizabeth Kubler Ross)
The 7 notes of the western diatonic scale
The 7 planets
The 7 colors
7 types of personal internal death

0-7
death of dependence
red
DO
wrath
humility
shock and denial
baptism
mercury

7-14
death of will
orange
RE
greed
diligence
pain and guilt
penance
venus
14-21
death of integrity
yellow
MI
lust
kindness
anger and bargaining

eucharist
earth
21-28
death of safety
green
FA
pride
patience
depression
confirmation
mars
28-35
death of family
blue
SO
envy
chastity
the upward turn
matrimony
jupiter
35-42
death of freedom
indigo
LA
gluttony
temperance
reconstruction and working through

anointing of the sick
uranus
42-49
death of the worldly
violet
TI
sloth
charity
acceptance and hope
holy orders
neptune
49-56

Pink Tower
Montessori blocks, printed script
2022
1500$