SYMBOLS IN FLAGS
Identity and region often defines a culture, and the symbols and flags they use to represent themselves are expressions long carried through generations. We see a flag and it can immediately conjure a country or people, an idea, or regime. Imagery is often recycled over time, and symbols are borrowed and reconstituted as times change. The swastika is an ancient Buddhist symbol that has been appropriated over time by the German Reich, the Star and Crescent was a symbol of the Greek city of Byzantium before being adopted as a symbol of Islam.
THE SALTIRE
The Saltire, or diagonal cross, has been featured on flags for centuries, notably on the flag of Scotland and the United Kingdom's Union Jack, and also found on the national flag of Jamaica today. A red over white saltire is on the flag of St. Patrick, and a blue one associated with St. Andrew has been featured on the Russian Navy's flag. It has permeated cultures and represented regions in Europe, Africa, North and South America among many others.
In the United States, this symbol has a much deeper meaning. It was adopted by the Army of Northern Virginia and became emblematic of the Confederate Army in the U.S. Civil War. It still sparks debate as many hold emotional ties to the symbolism found in the Confederate Battle Flag. But the symbolism of the saltire dates back so far, and only holds specific meaning in the time and place we live.
How does the negative connotations of the saltire persist? It is a powerful symbol that cannot be erased from memory. The meaning behind the symbol can only be changed, altered to mean something different, or more. Perhaps by seeing this symbol from new perspectives, with a different palette and color scheme, with enough variation, the symbols we hold immutable can be renewed.
MEANING IN SYMBOLS
We are influenced by our environment, and how we see symbols and images in our environment alters our experience of them. If the Pride flag, or Confederate flag, drums up outrage around you, then there can be a very real physical and emotional reaction triggered by seeing that flag again. It is conditional, and can be reasoned with. Clearly they are just colored lines and shapes in a rectangle, but the meaning we put into it, is what makes it a powerful symbol. The national flag can make you sentimental; it is not the flag itself, but what it represents to you that has such an emotional impact. It is that very fact, that symbols can hold emotional value that can influence us without the need for words, and that which allows an image, flag, or symbol to be used to bring people together under a common cause.
The flags we put up in our yards, the stickers we put on our cars, and the tattoos we put on our arms, are all symbols that represent our values and we use them to share that. The problem comes when people disagree on what those symbols represent.
Saltire of Our Universe, 2024. Printed media collage, grid of 12 images at 32"x 40".
There is no right and wrong on what a symbol does, or can, represent. They are subjective, and mean a little something different for each individual. It takes consensus for a symbol to hold meaning over time, and as stated before, those meaning change over time. We can actively adopt older symbols and give them new meanings. This is done all the time, as well as we create new ones.
Many symbols hold meaning that tells a story of our past, and should be something recognized. Not always should it be revitalized, sometimes it is better to be re-envisioned. Artists, companies, individuals, and groups have the ability to do this. The medium of symbolism is very flexible and manipulatable, and while it is important to keep in mind the past influences on those symbols, we should always avoid rebuking symbols and imagery just because we disagree with what we believe they represent. By demonizing the bad qualities of a symbol, you are perpetuating those sentiments and allowing the symbol to live on in negative light, when what one should do is see symbols as mutable things that can be seen from many sides.
RENDITIONS
By providing new arrangements of the traditional saltire composed of unrelatable patterns and textures found in the manifestation of our world, the flag patterns become a new vision of the symbol found in the saltire that is more universal.
By changing the colors and altering the imagery, these collages are an attempt to strip the preconceived connotations of the flag symbol and see it in a fresh perspective. They are composed of patterns and textures that distract the eye from the overall layout and into the details, appropriating the saltire into a new expression separate from old associations.
They are lively with color, rejecting traditional flag colors for more expressive and vibrant patterns and textures of nature, society, art and human endeavor. A universal rendition of a traditional flag layout, it becomes abstracted from the past.
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