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A flag really fit that mission, because that’s a way of proclaiming your visibility, or saying, “This is who I am!” Our job as gay people was to come out, to be visible, to live in the truth as I say, to get out of the lie. Harvey Milk was a friend of mine, an important gay leader in San Francisco in the ’70s, and he carried a really important message about how important it was to be visible, how important it was to come out, and that was the single most important thing we had to do. I was in the army and got out in 1972 and that became my role, if you will. That translated, because I was in San Francisco in the early ’70s, into being the guy that would make banners for protest marches.
Pictures of the real gay flag how to#
I knew how to sew-as I said, it came from being the drag queen that couldn’t afford the clothes I liked so I had to make them all. A flag starts with some fabric in the wind. MMF: Tell us about the process and circumstances of developing the concept for the flag in 1978.īaker: I write a lot about this story-it was about being in the right place at the right time. Plus, it’s a natural flag-it’s from the sky! And even though the rainbow has been used in other ways in vexillography, this use has now far eclipsed any other use that it had…. The rainbow is so perfect because it really fits our diversity in terms of race, gender, ages, all of those things. We needed something beautiful, something from us. It came from such a horrible place of murder and holocaust and Hitler. It was necessary to have the Rainbow Flag because up until that we had the pink triangle from the Nazis-it was the symbol that they would use. I was in the right place at the right time to make the thing that we needed. I was a big drag queen in 1970s San Francisco. But I didn’t really know that much about it. So the American flag was my introduction into that great big world of vexillography. And flags are about proclaiming power, so it’s very appropriate. And that influence really came to me when I decided that we should have a flag, that a flag fit us as a symbol, that we are a people, a tribe if you will. doesn’t say the word “Gay,” and it doesn’t say “the United States” on the American flag but everyone knows visually what they mean. I thought that we needed that kind of symbol, that we needed as a people something that everyone instantly understands. It’s not a painting, it’s not just cloth, it is not a just logo-it functions in so many different ways. That was the bicentennial of the United States and that year in particular I began to notice the American flag-which is where a lot of the Rainbow Flag comes from-in the sense that all of a sudden the American flag everywhere-from Jasper Johns paintings to trashy jeans in the Gap and tchotchkes.Īnd I thought, a flag is different than any other form of art. MMF: Were you interested in vexillography before you designed the Rainbow Flag?īaker: Vexillography is a very big word! Vexillography is really the high science and art and understanding of flags and their history, the academic word for flag making and heraldry. We’re proud the MoMA collection now includes this powerful design milestone, and there’s no more perfect time to share this news than during global celebrations for Gay Pride Month. Just a few days ago, he met Michelle Millar Fisher in MoMA’s offices to record an interview for the MoMA Archives, part of which is transcribed here. Artist Gilbert Baker created the Rainbow Flag in 1978 in San Francisco. We’re thrilled to announce that MoMA has acquired the iconic Rainbow Flag into its design collection, where it joins similarly universal symbols such as the symbol, the Creative Commons logo, and the recycling symbol. The Rainbow Flag waving in the wind at San Francisco’s Castro District.