WORKSHOP/SALON XI: What are Your True Colors?
COLOR POSSESSES ME. THERE IS NO NEED TO SEIZE IT. IT POSSESSES ME. I KNOW. HERE IS THE MEANING OF THE HAPPY MOMENT; COLOR AND I ARE ONE. I AM A PAINTER. - Paul Klee
A roomful of sweaters...
A few months ago we visited Shilasdair, the Skye Yarn Company on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. Tucked away down a long windy road, overlooking the water, was a small and very old stone studio and workshop where two women spin and dye sheep wool, design sweaters and run spinning workshops. The plants in the garden outside their door were labeled with tags, telling what natural dyes were made from which plants.
So much rich color of the natural-dyed sweaters hanging against the cold grey stone walls was breathtaking on a cold, dark day! Over a good cup of home-brewed coffee, we entered into an interesting conversation with the proprietor about the colors people choose to wear, how they are often so reflective of the environment as to be camouflage. In Scotland, people generally wear so much grey, dark blue and black...in New Mexico they wear vibrant sunset colors and lots of sky-blue denim, also many of the traditional "Southwest colors" of brown, rust, colors of the desert sand. When I lived in Louisiana, we used to wear a lot of pastel, floral colors - in fact, a lot of flowered prints in our dresses.
I'm sure you can look around where you live and see similar reflections. With the ladies of Shilasdair, we speculated on why people do this, instead of dressing in contrast, perhaps, to their geography - or why some do choose to dress in colors against the norm, for dramatic effect (for a variety of reasons).
Survival tactics?
In ancient times it was probably in part a survival tactic - camouflage for protection, hiding, blending in. It is interesting that we continue the trend even in our more sophisticated or urban environments, where such protection might not be physically necessary. But then, why - on my arrival to Scotland - did I myself go in search of dark colors in Glasgow stores, shoving my New Mexico colors to the back of the closet? And why did Scotland Bob go shopping for his USA tour, shedding his dark blue duds and packing only whites and beige linens in anticipation of our Texas/New Mexico tour? And myself, this summer, back in the states, why did I lust after the oranges, lime greens, turquoise, light linens - and put away my blacks? It wasn't just that it was summer. I was color-thirsty, and felt I could relax into color again for a while. Yet on the day we were flying back to the UK, I donned all black. I brought a couple of vibrantly-hued shirts back with me to Scotland and have yet to wear them. They just don't "speak to me" here; I'm back to my blacks and greys.
An emotional response...
My relationship with color is undergoing changes in my new environment. I find I appreciate it more, by seeing it less. ( I mean the vibrant colors.) I might not necessarily notice hot tangerine flowers in New Mexico, but here they grab my eye because they are unexpected, leaning on an ancient grey wall smudged by traffic fumes. And in redecorating our wee house here, I am always thinking about color - which colors can we live with over time? Which are jarring or too dull? Which appeal more to my Scottish family, which appeal more to artistic me? I have become much more selective about color, here, in many ways. (A quick glance into the garage, at the shelf of paint samples tried and rejected over the past year tells it all. Bob threatens to blend them all into one bucket and paint the next room whatever color they reveal.)
Since colors are one of the critical tools we use in creating - whether one is a visual artist or writer or musician - since colors bring emotional response in both the artist using them and the viewer or reader - it seemed we might explore this a bit here, over the next couple of weeks.
Especially as our next workshop moderator, Jill Kiefer, is a visual artist and art historian (she will set up her workshop on September 24th, topic TBA) .
Spend a little time with a rainbow...
I found an interesting and fun website you might visit, in thinking about color and how you respond to it, how you use it in your work and life.
http://bulltown.com/colorspeak/1/
Oh, I wish for this workshop we had a huge blank wall, a pile of paints and chalks, and you could each come into the room and just play with the colors that speak to you today...and get rid of all these words!
But we are cyber here and we are wordy so...I'd love to hear from any of you, about your relationship with color.
Do you dream in color?
After you see a b&w film, do you remember it in color?
Is there one color that, your whole life, has always drawn you to it? One that has always repelled you? Do you have any idea why?
Sometimes I imagine colors as if they were living ideas, being of pure reason with which to communicate. Nature is not on the surface, it is deep down. - Paul Cezanne
The laws of color are unutterably beautiful, just because they are not accidental. - Vincent Van Gogh
DO WHAT YOU LOVE AND LOVE WHAT YOU DO!
Michelle Miller Allen
http://www.greenphoenixproductions.com
(Thanks to the ladies of Shilasdair for the tour of their dying studio, where I was allowed to take the photaes of their work area above.)
posted by Spiritbear @ 2:50 PM
49 comments
49 Comments:
I always feel the color I am looking at or living in.
I guess I pull experiences together with colors and they speak a language all of their own to me.
Also with age I find more colors appealing to me .
Some of these colors would have turned me away as a younger person yet now I embrace and include them in my favorites.
I find myself attracted to aquatic colors especially lately.
Any variations on the blue/green themes.
Deep pinks --anything from hot pinks, peony , rose wine to what's considered dark raspberry .
At one point in my life I trained as a colour analyst, you know these people who drape different coloured scarves around folks necks and tell them they should never wear blue?
Well anyway, it awoke my interest in colour and I have noticed many things since then.
We rarely notice when colour is right; we will say, "It was really restful" or "It was very vibrant" but we think we are talking about the mood. We nearly always notice when colour is wrong; "It was drab" or "The room was dull" and again we think we aren't talking about the colour.
Personally, I have noticed that what I want to wear and what I want to live in, are totally different. I want to wear vibrant, warm colours mixed with lots of black, brown or khaki. But I want to live in cool lavenders, icy blues and and pearly pinks.
So what does this tell me? I see myself differently from my surroundings, maybe I clash.
When I'm working creatively, I find myself affected by the seasons; in Spring I want yellows and sharp apple greens, in Summer, blues and pinks, in Autumn, the wonderful colours of New England trees and in Winter either the cold blues of frosts or the reds and greens of a poinsetta.
The whole discussion makes me feel such compassion towards those who are colour blind!
chakRAcise: 1st U must go on a Quest to find 'sun'glasses in All the colours of the RAinBow.
If U R very industrious, U could possibly make your own with poster board & colouRed cellephane
Then, absorb yourself in a colour by wearing your
'sun'glasses in the colour of your choosing
4 at least an hour & make note of how that
colour takes affect & how it effects you & your surroundings.
Color...love color...many colors strike me, but only a few touch my soul:
Copper, amethyst, cobalt blue, blue toned reds, sages and foresty greens.
A dear aunt once told me she thought that was unusual for a brown-eyed, copper penny red head. I dunno...I've never had anyone analyze my color preferences.(I believe I'm disproportionally weighted toward one side of the color wheel.)
More to say, but it's past midnight, my nose is full of basement dust and I'm pooped. I'll check out that website at break time tomorrow.
New Colors, that has been my most recent experience. Living in a new place, I am seeing wild flowers that are new to me. I spent days in my old home,in the upper midwest, walking through the woods, praries and parks; and I knew those plants and the flowers they made. But being here in the southwest,after all the rain that has come since you and Bob left, the plants here in the foothills have exploded. I am seeing new flowers that seemed to have shot up and finished their cycle in a matter of weeks. An awful lot of yellow, but some wonderful oranges, purples and blues. It makes me want to pick up a brush and paint and it's been well over a decade since I've done that! But oddly enough, I have just noticed ( since you brought it up ) that lately I have been wearing dark greens, greys, blacks, tans, no prints, no stripes. Mmmmm, maybe I need to get more in touch with my surroundings?
Fresh from sleep and coffee mug in hand, I am back to answer your questions.
Being a child of the 50's I grew up with black and white. Not only do I recall in color...I provided my own as I watched.
Dreaming in color is the norm for me...so much so that a black and white dream has the ability to unnerve me trying to figure a reason for the absence of colors.
Even so I love them in natural settings, Oranges and yellows often have a jarring effect on me. That being said...New Mexico color and those of the midwest appear perfect for their locale. And, perhaps they need to be so brilliant so as not to be washed out in the bold light of the Western sun.
As I have aged, I find that exhuberant shots of color...small but impacting...speak to my spirit. (hence the patches of color on the shoe cubbies in the closet.) Here in the South one is expected to be more...eh...demure and pastels seem to be the norm. I do my best, but you are just as likely to find that I have dosed that pastel with a shot or 6 of something unexpected. (wouldn't have done that in my oh, so shy and wishing to camoflage myself youth.) My darling dotter calls them my splash of color....often so subtle as to be the brilliantly colored socked hidden beneath my jeans or inside my boots.
Still, the walls within this abode are more subtle in shade. (Dare I admit they ARE pastel?) The snaps of color come in the accessorizing the space with bits of bold color that speak to me when shopping. I enjoy the restful, welcoming of the lighter colors infused with the wake-up of small gems of brilliance.
And, as far as metalics are concerned...Copper is my metal of choice. I love the patinas as it ages and the brilliance of fire coloring when treated with heat. I would fill the house with it and my secondary favorite of wrought iron.
After visiting your wonderful treehouse in the Jemez, it is challenging for me to imagine you in less colorful surroundings as I see you the bold, bright mistress of your surroundings. (yes...I know there's a scared little girl INSIDE.) It comforts me to read that you have those colorful shirts...even if they are stashed in the closet.
What I do remember the most, SB, are the beautiful scarves and the warmth of the bedroom I shared with Shaka. They touched me right to the spirit.
Wow, seems like we are bursting with colorful responses today! I think the emotional pull of colors has everything to do with my finding ALL of your responses waiting for me this morning, like a bouquet of flowers of thought.
I like the way April says it, that she FEELS the colors. I read a quote somewhere that some people in the world SEE...and others see COLORS.
Fluidity, movement = those aquatic colors, April, which makes sense to your current transitions, eh? The deep pinks, I am drawn to them too but don't usually wear or choose them for my surroundings...I just like to appreciate them at distance, or in flowers.
However, my absolute all-time favorite color, and it has never changed through the years, is rust red and the copper tones, deep wine but mostly just rust red. Like the red rocks of New Mexico and the color of rusted metal and dried blood, etc. And I have no idea why. I am also, later in life, very drawn to all kinds of greens and do surround myself with them in my home(s). And in clothes I always grab black and then add muted/jewel colors to that. And I like to wear grey because you can put any other color with it and I find it oddly comforting and comfortable.
It's odd to me how there are some colors I simply cannot wear because I actually feel jumpy and uneasy if they are on my body. I wonder what that is about? Anything neon or too intense or vibrant, even if beautiful, I just feel I'm not up to it.
Outlaw, you mentioned cobalt blue. Yes, one must have some of that in their life, especially in glass, in a window. All the colors you mentioned in your first post here, those are my same, the ones to which I have most affinity.
It's interesting, as you said, Eileen, that we may choose different colors for our home surroundings than the ones we choose to wear. Maybe there is a feeling of safety in our surroundings...we don't have to blend into anything there for camouflage, it's OURS, we can do what we like inside our walls.
I have been reading about the history of color, dyes, etc. They have even found that very ancient people would go to great lengths and even distances to drag different-colored stones to lay on the floors of their dwellings, colors not common to their area.
ShaRi, I love your suggestion about the sunglasses! And it makes me think about a pair of brown prescription ones I had for a while, that made all colors more intense. I remember being disappointed that the colors in nature were NOT as seen through those glasses!
Linc...it IS interesting about your colors...didn't you tend to wear print shirts, like Hawaiian shirts, when you lived up north? Is my memory wrong or right on that? But you may not be out of sinc, linc (grins)...one of the things a lot of New Mexico folks do is to wear black and then add touches of turquoise and silver...very dramatic!
Outlaw, I would love more copper in my life. Sheets of metal, whole walls of it...I love the copper color and I also love the way it "greens" when exposed to the damp, the verdigris.
Yes, I feel very emotional when we talk about color!
:)
April tuned me in to Dichroic glass...fusion of 2 or more distinctly colored glasses to create...well...an almost wearable rainbow.
In Asheville, NC last week I bought my first piece from a street fair. Amethyst is the background, I think. I'm not sure as to the secondary and tertiary colors..and was too "DUH" to ask. It was the fire within the silver wrapped oval that grabbed me immediately. (I'll try to post a pic on my blog later.) I would have preferred copper, but the artist doesn't work with it.
It has ocurred to me to check into the feasability of working this medium myself. Imagine...creating wearable rainbows wrapped in copper wire.
Yes, SB, I did wear Hawaiian/Print shirts when I lived up north. It was a regular event when the weather turned warmer that I would begin the hunt for the new shirt for that year. Most would have some organic thing going on; flowers, leaves, some sort of vegetation( probably the gardener in my soul). And I did bring some with me when I moved to the Southwest and wore them regularly at first, but they have migrated to the back of the closet. And I have also come to a creative stand still as of late, Hmmmm. This talk of color did make me rethink what I wore today, instead of the dark green shirt I was about to wear, I grabbed a bright yellow one, and maybe I did walk a bit lighter today. Perhaps tomorrow will see one of those Hawaiians make it out of the back of the closet?
I always thought that some colors were somehow man-made , but after being exposed to especially tropical flowers here , I find to my great surprise how many tricks Gaia has up her sleeve.
Dichroic glass is one of my most favorite recent discoveries.
I ran into it in 2003 at a craft show, and have been enamored ever since.
I have so many now it's crazy.
I recently found a company that does just one color at a time too, and I got myself this gorgeous intense
light green pendant that is a color between apple and lime green.
The intense color , combined with the shape, framing and richly visible texture makes me almost giddy when I look at it.
I tend to wear mostly black foundation garments ( pants & cami) and a top with a solid alternate color.Occassionally patterned but not often.
I also love peach skin or microfiber cloths , and shiny cloths as well as silks.
I like the way certain colors look on certain fabrics.
Another way I bring color into my life is Bare Escentuals make up.
Their powders compliment my aging complexion , and I love working with their iridescent colors.
I have found many ways to bring colors into and onto myself.
I for one am enjoying this sensory bombardment. We tend to get pretty ethereal in these salon discussions, it's nice for a change to fill up on sensory stuff, eh?
Dichroic glass, yes I love it too! I bought a pair of mostly coppery/bronze/pink earrings of that glass at what I call "the bomb museum", a museum in Los Alamos at the history display about the Labs. There's an art gallery/store attached to it with work by NM artisans of the area.
I've even seen some amazing things that look similar to that, but done in plastic.
ShaRi and I found some remarkable work at a gallery in Cerrillos, NM last summer. We got her one of them, it's like a glass globe about the size of, um, maybe a plum? And in it is a "world" that looks like another planet...I don't remember how the artist made them but they are so magical! Each one unique.
Colors in glass are a whole OTHER marvelous thing. One of my faves is the Chagall windows at the museum in Chicago. I try to have as much stained glass in my home as possible...so far NONE in the Scotland home but hope to find a panel somewhere, someday, that fits here. But I have some in almost every room in New Mexico, in lamps and window pieces. One thing I have always loved to do is go to antique stores that have old stained glass panels from churches, you can find some amazing things that way, even if just to admire.
Light and color. Sooth the soul.
:)
What I have found for me is that after the dark days recently, color in my world...both literally and figuratively...is a NEED rather than a want.
Glass IS amazing. My Handyman gave me the gift of appreciating glass. The blending of color. How light affects the color. And the curving, almoost fluid, sensuality of it's movement within pieces.
Color definitely has feeling to it. And, I see more Dichroic Glass in my future.
april-eileen-shari-outlaw-linc
and my sib spiritbear. hey y'all...no time for caps...
eileen you gave me major chuckles with the comment about the scarves...y'all as a group have interesting scope on colour...
comments seem to be about what you see now, i may be viewing these comments from my own hard/jaded scope.
i see colour from my childhood up to my older now days, tv was black and white in the 50s and 60s until all american houses had 2 bw tv's then the japanese introduced color tv and all the consumers got at least one of those. yeah i am introducing technology into this workshop, sorry have to do it. back to reality...as a kid i wore black and white to parochial school...don't think that changed all the way up until...blue jeans and black t-shirts!!! what fun, the rocker look. that was the wardrobe until, still is, with some additions, my colours are also bdu black, which is the absence of color; and red and blue and green lights (my computer room is bathed in red light like a techno movie, friends come visit and say 'if i had a room like this i would get a beer and never come out'), which are the colors of the led's in and on the machines i work on and build and use, pc's and macs, and 400 watt amps that kill chickens at 100 yards for a good stage volume to play my fiddle (with hues of red-brown varnish in my face for years) through so the guitar player next to me doesn't overwhelm me in a live show. all the years on stage under rgyb/cmyk stage lighting along with white spots made a color impression unmatched in natural conditions.
they call me the man in black but in younger years i loved hawaiin shirts...and the red white and blues of the all the flags of nations that are on my walls...
being fairly well traveled i will say that the natural colors that no man makes are for example the sunset in the fall over the sangre de cristo mountains driving south from santa fe in new mexico; the blood moon i just saw last week here in tennessee one month early on the north horizon coming up over the cumberland plateau...
boy howdy there are so many more i could write here for days, but those two will always be recalled...things like plants and flowers don't seem to stick with me, tho' the canas in texas my dad brought me from louisiana were always beautiful, bright yellows and reds and wonderful bronze!
one man-made thing of colors I have is a gorgeous zuni bolo tie, perfect silver inlays, tourquoise, and other stones, black, aged yellow, y'all, it is exquisite...if there is one man-made thing of colours i would look to it is the one. I am fortunate to own it, a gift from a special person. what better colour can there be?
Lar
Wow, I agree SB, I am digging this sensory stuff. What you mentioned about old church glass reminded me of my childhood, before I escaped from the Catholic church. I loved those windows! The more modern churches, from the 60's and 70's, with the more abstract chunks of glass suspended in concrete or whatever, never seemed to acheive the same efect as the older, leaded glass windows. It was never so much the subject matter, although many of those were truely beautiful in their own right, but the newer ones never seemed to have the richness; the blues ranging from cobalt and darker, juicy reds, golden yellows that dazzled the eye; all glowing with some other worldly light. Looking back at that time now, I can remember being messmerized by the colors and probably missing what was going on at the altar.
Oh by the way, I did pull out one of those shirts today ( tigers and green bamboo ) to wear to this place where I sit in with a band on Wednesday evenings. For half the night I felt like I was fighting with what I was playing, then it just started coming out fine. But I did get several compliments on my playing all evening. I guess that just goes to show how our art can be valued more, sometimes, in the eye of the beholder!
I love you!
A guy from India
Interesting comments and thoughts on color. But I think they also reflect your soul. Sorta like the stages of life. It's like art and how we are all individuals in what we like in art.
What is wrong with blues & blacks? I have never understood that one, even as a teenager. I guess I won't exactly look totally out of place next month when I visit the UK. I have the perfect color wardrobe to "fit in". Over the years, I have added some greens & oranges, and maybe a little red. But they are still deep and rich in tones & intensity.
I have noticed over the past year that now that I see the sunshine much more, that I do tend to include much brighter colors in my life but it just doesn't feel natural to me, just yet.
Michelle, I have enjoyed the pictures of the cottage mill you have attached. But then, I am a spinner of wool. I have never dabbled in natural dyes as I was thrown into widowhood the weekend others were gonna teach me but I have dabbled in the creation of colors. There is nothing more mysterious to me than trying to describe a color creation that actually changes with the light.
Lar, you made me smile this morning.
We never owned 2 b&w's, but we WERE the first on our block with a real color TV (gads they were awful). Remember the viewing screen you could buy to place over the b&w to "add color"...my first experience with RGB...it was dreadful in the remembering. (and I recall when color came to computer monitors...RGB again.) Now we have HD TV and colors to boggle the mind while feeling like everything is jumping off the screen at you. Who needs 3-D glasses?
What in nature can compete with the color play in New Mexico? I grew up in Southern California and travelled the highway between there and Texas till I was about 20. Nothing I have seen in this country compares with the light in New Mexico. I was again struck by it when I visited your sib that fall before she met TMS for the first time. The colors of the Jemez Red Rock are nothing short of awesome.
You may be that man IN black, but you LOOK at the world in color...see...you end on the note of that special man-tooled from naturally colored objects that means so much to you...AND...I'll bet there's one of those Hy-wy-annnn shirts still in the back of your closet.
What colour is bliss?
Hmmm, bliss...for me it is something between amethyst and purple but also opalescent...pearlized...with traces of silver...shimmery...and underlying lots of white light...not a dense color, very cloud-like and layered and misty.
Greetings earthling, to gineeshjoseph! I checked your blog and your photaes are fantastic! Everyone should click on his signature and see!
Eileen and I took a quick gurl-shopping trip today in the rainy foggy Scotland, to a garden center/deli/coffeeshop place. We picked up fancy cheeses and crackers and sweeties, had a sparkling water, a good chat, checked out the scented candles department. Twas very pleasant!
Lar, I love your post, I really would like to see you get (back) into writing, you have such a style!
Lar, when you think of non-man-made colors, don't forget the humble humming bird...
Outlaw, yes, the light is why artists go to New Mexico. Dorlinn, here in the Highlands, hs some moments like that, too...I think it is hard to do landscapes there because the light changes every few minutes.
I remember one time a Canadian mechanic made me sit still and not move, on top of a car hood, to watch the sun set in the desert in New Mexico. We sat for a few hours there...watching the colors subtly shift...if you looked away for a split second, then back, everything was different again. Mostly I remember amazing purpleness.
debbie, I like your stages of life theory of color. And, yes, there's NOTHING wrong with black and blue! Black especially! And there are many kinds of black.
linc, do you think those tigers helped or hindered your playing? sounds like they were tussling to get free and then they did, and then your audience was with you. Something like that?
ShaRi, I think I tried to leave a comment at your blog but it didn't appear yet...a few days ago...is your editing mode operating correctly? I think I had this problem before.
Ok, coffee just burbled downstairs so it's time for that again...
By the way, I will be away from computer for circa 36 hours this weekend so if you post and it doesn't appear til Sunday late in the day, that's why. Just a brief interlude...
SB :)
What color is Bliss?
mmmm...I like SB's answer...it works for me.
But, there is also another...see the movie What Dreams May Come? The end when the world fills with light, color, sounds, smells...the flowers, sky, birds, water...that beautiful open Italianate house becomes whole again.
Maybe Bliss iss every color.
Yes.
When I close my eyes and think on it...
For me...
Bliss iss every color.
Yes, SB, it definitely was the tigers. The oranges and vibrant shades of green woke something in me (harking back to my beloved lily garden that I left when I sold my house back in that upper midwest place)and I had just watched one of the Rocky movies and Stallone was wearing this jacket with a tiger on the back and I did remember that song from my commercial musician days a few decades ago (I didn't care for it much then and still don't now, but that eye of the tiger thing has a way of boring into ones brain)and yes, I will admit it, I do occassionally watch crap movies; some people have doughnuts, some listen to Backstreet Boys or Jessica Simpson, read romance novels or the National Inquirer; we all sometimes need something that requires no higher brain function. Hmm, could that be considered viseral or sensory?
Oh, and I did go out this afternoon to gather a bunch of those wildflowers. I felt the need to bring some of that color into the house with me for the evening.
Wildflowers...oh, nature's gift to those with brown thumbs (me)...thanks, linc...I need to go to the back 40 and reassign some of fall's bounty.
Sunshine is my favorite color today. Sunshine and Fall Sky Blue. Is that a real color? It should be. In fact...I decree it so...therefore, now it is.
And, I bought mums yesterday...brilliant yellow, amethyst and maroon. Tiny little pots around a verdi gris lantern on the stoop. My first shots of autumn's glory.
I had to pass this one on; my daughter, Catriona, aged 10, was talking about taking a test this morning. She said she was sure she was going to pass it "with flying rainbows". I think she meant "flying colours" but it gives me a clue to what her colours are like!
How does colour sound?
(SB, did you do the word verification? i got a post from you on SpiderWoman, but it came in under the Tara comments.)
Outlaw, What Dreams May Come has some wonderful color moments, I especially like the way Robin Williams is running through the landscape and it turns out to be paint. Bathing in the colors of your enviorment! What a wonderful idea! And rainbows! The last 2 months since I moved up to the high country I have seen more rainbows than I have in the last 2 years, and several of those have been doubles. Unlike those from the upper midwest, some of these I could see almost to the bottom, the subtle colors over laying the scenery behind them. Magnificant! Thank all of you for helping to pull these memories out of the background of my mind. And inspite of battling some nasty little illness these last several days, I've come up with a piece of an idea that will probably turn into a song in the near future. Thanks, again, everyone, for the creative kick start!
Ahhhh....the synchronicity (thanks for that word, BTW, SB) and serendipity of these workshops.
Rainbows. Two that stick out in mind have happened in the last 2 years. One upon Lake Lure during one of those quick but torrential mountain rains where the rainbow began and ended on opposite banks of the lake. The second was at an ice cream shoppe during the same type of summer storm here in the city...a double we watch for nearly 30 minutes as it followed the storm. Both were breathtakingly awesome.
Linc...I hope you share that song with us when it is finished being birthed.
What Dream May Come is one of those movies that haunts my inner spaces. When first I saw it I wasn't exactly sure I liked it...too soon I suppose even so it had been out for years before...but, in the looking back and then seeing it again....well...somehow, it just touches places.
And, lastly, SB you were in my mind watching a TLC program Friday night about a certain portion of Alaska referred to as the Rain Coast. There are Black Bears with a recessive genetic code that turns them nearly white...they are not ablbino as their skin and noses are black... they are so rare....1 in 1000 births and most don't survive...the indigenous people call them The Spirit Bears.
I thought of you and your uniqueness among our peers and mused what a gift you are in our lives.
My favorite color today is green...shifting from pale sage to dark forest...dappled by the sun filtering through leaves that have not quite yet made up their mind to change their colors.
Oh...and how does color sound?
Today it sounds like crickets and cicadas mixed with the chip-chip of the busy little chick-a-dees who live here year round.
More later this evening to respond to you all...but very quickly, Outlaw, there is a reason I chose SpiritBear...
I never saw the full page on which Rick's obituary was posted, in the Albuquerque Journal...only clippings sent to me from it by friends later...
Almost two years after his death, I was befriended by ShaRi, who had been a close friend of Rick's before I knew him. She asked me if I had realized what was on the obituary page directly under his notice? (As she had become aware of my bear fettish and how the bear was important in the process Rick and I went through in his cancer year...) No, I had not...so she sent it to me. It was a photae of the exact Spirit Bear of which you wrote today...and all about it. I was amazed! So I investigated further, emailed a bit with the photographer and found out all about Spirit Bears...and took the name.
More later, in synchronicity!
SB
Linc and Outlaw, gather a few for me...I've been warned over here that Scotland's wildflowers are protected, one cannot gather them! I don't know if that's TMS having me on or not, but I daren't find out! So I just walk along and enjoy but do not pick.
Now, wild berries, that's another thing. Apparently one is still allowed to forage!
Eileen, I love flying rainbows! Catriona is a hoot!
Yes, ShaRi, I did the word verification...well, I'll try again...maybe I posted in the wrong section by mistake...
Creative kick starts are happily exchanged here, linc, it goes both ways...sorry you have been ill, hope that just whoosh! goes away! And I agree with Outlaw, hope you will share a song sometime...what I hope to do eventually is find a way to add sound to this blog, or move to a blog server where I can...
I have seen amazing rainbow phenomenon here in Scotland, too...I even saw where the rainbow ends in the water and assume a pot of gold is under there...at least dream gold was definitely there, for me!
Thank you for the kind words, Outlaw.
I have a special synchronistic relationship with that WDMC movie, too, won't go into that here and now but...it's fun and funny that it comes up here tonight...
Ok, finally, ShaRi calls for sound to our colors...hmmm...how about summer night green, becoming as dark as black as the sun goes down but, as a color, it's really neon speckled, because of the fireflies?
So the sound of it is a low whispering flute perforated with faint crackling sounds like cellophane unwrapping from those little cube-shaped caramels?
Coffee time!
SB
SB, you could pick those colours with a camera.
If you had told me before how you came to use SpiritBear I have forgotten it. Another Rick Allen legend. Does he ever stop? Hope not.
But the bear reflections bring to mind our excursion to the Eilson AFB Alaska trashdump when Daddy Roy drove us out to see the real deal, Alaskan Browns, in an old rented Ford. We drove up and all the bears walked over to check us out. A whole family, big suckers! They frequented the dump to forage.
They climbed all over the car and Mom was real nervous but DR said just be quiet and watch and we did. One plumped down on the hood and lay there looking in at us. Engine warmth on its belly I guess. After about a half hour of bear climbing DR started tooting the horn to get them to move away, started the car and slowly drove on. I never got closer to a bear than the 12 foot plus stuffed Kodiak in a museum in Fairbanks. Save the coat of Rick's bear in New Mexico.
Miche, you challenge me to write again, have I ever written? Words to me are a colour of communication. I have written a lot of stuff, but I don’t consider myself as having written as a writer, like you, or these folks in this workshop. Words written or typed as we now do for the sake of cyber-comm I think still have colour meant by the person who writes the ideas wanted to be exchanged. But what is the colour? And what is style? Is it another form of colour? How do you "vision" it?
This is a fairly close group, but to write to the broad world of readers, how do you get there? You have done so and well. You spent eons to do it. I have not spent that kind of time. Words just flow out of me if the atmosphere is there. Or the right sips of Single Malt Scotch or Kentucky Bourbon combined with ethos. How does that make me qualify to write?
If there is a way to see colour and a way to write with any point of use they must be combined, I think. So how do you see a word and what colour is it? What colour is a writer?
I liked the reminder of the noble hummingbird; I immediately remembered as well our family guardian of luck and brilliant colour the Cardinal
Lar
Oooooh...well said, Lar. Or, I should say...well written.
A friend tells me that putting words to paper, screen etc. makes one a writer. It matters not that the words may be seen by one, a few or many. And, you sir, to my mind, have as equal a gift for word imagery as your sibling.
You present an intriguing question as to the color of writing. The tone of writing can be dark, light, happy, sad, probing...but do these have an equivalent to actual color? I have truly never considered it before.
And...how would one consider the color as imagined by the writer versus that visioned by the reader? In the end does it matter?
We drop the words as pebbles in a pond watching the circles as they widen never knowing when, where or how they will touch beginning yet another set of circles.
Should one write? Perhaps the better question is does one NEED to write? Do the words seem to flow of their own accord? Lar has answered that to the extent he understands his own writing.
And, what of other forms of creation? Those that are not only visual, but tactile? How does one decide whether or not to proceed?
Methinks, with this group in mind, we do so because we NEED the outlet for expression of what is in our souls. The color, imagery, texture needs release and, therefore, we create.
My favorite color today is the steel grey of the clouds releasing their tiny droplets of water upon the fast fading greens of the small forest behind my house.
How does red feel?
Hmmmm...how does Red feel?
Hot, molten, magma, slow flowing.
Velvet, draping on the back of a Victorian couch.
Chennile on a modern sofa.
Mister Lincoln Rose...full of thorns...but smells like heaven.
And, believe it or not...NOT one of my favorite colors unless it falls as a blue-red.
My favorite color today is late afternoon yellow-gold of the September sun. (I'm gonna miss this when we're done with colors.)
Red-- feels like silk to me.
Creamy tube of lipstick,and
Chinese decorator pillows.
I equate bliss with sky blues.
When I look up at the wide blue sky here in all it's nuances every day , I am blissful to still be here to enjoy it.
When I think of BIG sky...Montana and Wyoming come to mind.
As a youth traveling back and forth between California and Texas, I really thought Texas had the biggest sky.
Wrong.
A late summer trip through the upper 48 showed me what sky and stars are all about. Absolutely breath taking. (Francisca's home atop that Jemez butte comes a very close second.)
With no competing light from surrounding civilization the stars are as brilliant as halogen lights and twinkle like nothing I've ever seen against the indigo night.
Velvet and diamonds.
All of your words really feed me, I love coming here to read what's new!
Lar, you wrote a whole book once, if you recall. (Ah how quickly they forget!) Outlaw is right, you have the gift. And Outlaw is right, it has to do mostly with a need to write or create.
I used to have lots of high-fallutin' ideas in my youth about why I wrote. Over time it's simply come to "it's the only time I feel completely whole, right and doing/being what I'm here to do/be." Yes, dobeedobeeedo!
Red: how does it feel...attracting, crackling, not soothing but asking something of the viewer...hot...I think if it were personified, it would actually be very needful, as it MUST dominate and be the center and pull everyone's eyes toward it. I think of the red velvet dress Scarlett O'Hara wears in the big seduction scene in the movie. That kind of red. So...power coming from a position of NOT power.
Whew!
I am giggling in delight because I have had a sneak preview of our next workshop by Jill Kiefer! I have decided to post it on Saturday the 23rd, instead of waiting til Sunday the 24th, since it's ready to go and also since it can only be up til I depart on the 1st of October for our 2-week trip to the Highlands. HOWEVER, I expect it will be a subject that will bring a lot of discussion, so what I will do is, on my return October 15th, I will resume Jill's workshop from the 15th through the 22nd. I hope that works for Jill, too...but even if she is too preoccupied by then to respond much (she teaches), we can carry on nevertheless (nothing ever stopped any of US from talking!)
Any of you who asked earlier, or thought about, hosting a workshop...please email me sometime before October 1st so we can set up your schedule for this fall/winter.
I will be checking out OUR sky tonight and tomorrow...apparently a hurricane is heading to this wee island...by the time it gets here it will be mostly a wind storm but I hear the winds will be intense!
Take care, all,
SB
This is becoming more thought provoking every day. At one time, I was trained in color analyst as to what colors would look best on a person. That has gone by the wayside and at the time, I stayed very true to what looked best, all those dark flattering colors. But I have done a nasty thing called aged over the years.
I have always been attracted to blues. In a psychic workshop a few years ago, it was amazing how right down to my favorite color correlates to my personality of my soul. I am a healer as soul journey and professionally. How that ever happened, I have no idea but I guess I have chosen my career well, according to my soul purpose. But that's beside the point. I want to go back and share how my color preferences have changed over the years.
When I think back, I can see trends and patterns of how my life have changed and the colors I surrounded myself, changed with each stage of life. Even my wardrobe has changed. I'm now into the teals and reds and darker purples in place of the pastel blues. As I have grown, the colors I surround myself have become much richer. I can't wait until the next stage of life, just to see what colors will be involved.
Now, I wonder what was going thru my head 3 years ago when I stocked up on wool rovings for spinning. The colors are absolutely horrible. Guess I need to get spinning to see how they will blend together. It will be interesting to see what is created.
Red Red Red, a color with such a reputation. It does pull at the eyes of the beholder, but much more so if it is only one. What I mean..........Back in the days of playing on a bandstand, looking over the crowd, the men in their jackets and ties, the women in their various outfits, hairdos and jewelery. If one woman walked in wearing a striking red dress, done up to the 9's, heads would turn. If, on the other hand, several women made the same fashion choice for the evening, mmmm, not quite the same response. Red needs to be that singular entity to have that effect. That is of course, if we are talking about that bold, striking red. I personally perfer the reds in the setting Sun. The varying hues, the changing dance of red with it's cousin orange, the heart saying goodbye to this day as it journeys off to the West and memory.
But the blues of the sky.........one of the things that has drawn me here to the west. Pale, in the glow of a hot Sun and cloudless vista. Changing with the coming of clouds or wind, dawn or dusk. I think of the works of a favorite artist of mine, Maxfield Parrish, his work shows well all the hues the sky is cabable of creating. Pale blues, azures, sapphires, indigoes, violets, dancing us back toward red again.
Yes, reds pulse with power, and blues make me feel the balance, the inner calm I need to Be.
I agree with Outlaw. I, too, will miss this color discussion, but look forward to hearing from everyone as we move along.
I've got a last comment on colour, but it doesn't really come from me.
I've been reading a new book and it talks about the closing down of winter, how the skies turn from " a sharp clear cold where a million stars burn bright and close, to the gray-pink cloud that enfolds the earth with the promise of snow." In Scotland we say "the nights are fair drawin' in." indicating the shortness of days and the dulling of all colours and light. I've been attending a photography class with my son for the past year and the thing that stands out is that great photographs have great light.
I wonder what it would be like to live near the Equator where days are more or less the same length all year. Here in Scotland the days change from 18 hours in high summer to less than 8 hours in winter and unsurprisingly, the colours change too.
"The world could go away, and we would heal" Here's hoping.
Outlaw, I find myself re-re-re-re-re-reading your post...regarding writing and colour and the need. It jumped out at me, I like all you say, you give me hope. Thanks for it. I can't imagine any comparison to sib's writing skills; she is the light in the world to me, she is the bear named hope.
You are right, I have the need.
SB you are on point too, I did write it, and have wanted to continue writing it. I should do it.
linc, in all my years running the road, and in your 'commercial music days' the colour red always was there; "the red carpet clubs" as I call them. In the good days and the not so good days there were always rooms to play with red carpet on the walls. Assuming you played a few I am sure you know what I mean. Smoky bars with pool tables and juke boxes or DJs.
I don't seem to have a colour lately, but I come to this site every day, sometimes several times a day, just to see what y'all are talking about. I think each of you are putting colour images in me and quickening me back to colours.
Lar
Here I go again with techno-babble, but this is an 'interesting' event I was in today on the I-40 from Nashville to my pad in Lebanon in the evening drive. I think it involves colour---paint and attitude, are they the same thing?
I have this NASCAR 87 Chevy Monte Carlo SS that was designed by Dale Earnhardt, called the Aerocoupe. Of course mine is street version, 305ci 4-barrel and true duals; after the NASCAR teams get hold of a factory roll off there is nothing left but the body.
The standard Monte SS package body is called a "bowtie" because the rear window has a notchback vertical rear window design. The Aerocoupe came out of Dale's mind and was a swept fastback window like the old Mustangs and other muscle cars from the 70s.
They only made 6250 of them. It reduced drag by 5% and he won a lot of races in 85-86-87 before he went to the Lumina body.
Mine is silver grey, it's called "The Grey Ghost". It isn't as pretty these days as it was...but it saved my life four times because it is a beast, made of steel, not modern auto plastic. And I'll have it back to new again eventually. You can't sell off a tested friend like that. So I think Grey is my official colour. How could I not remember that?
This evening I was visited like a vampire by a beautiful pure white 86 Monte SS notchback---he drove up alongside me, then pulled out in front, and we both hit the I-40 in heavy traffic. It was obvious he wanted to race. This was a gorgeous car, and I could tell by his acceleration he had the 350ci option engine, see the Flowmaster duals, lifter shocks, and he was drivin' it, he was trying me.
(I once took the Ghost up to full tack and it scared me, never did it again. Sib can tell you about a ride from Louisiana to Texas; I was moooving, it didn't occur to me until much later that it must have caused her and Rick some major nervies, but we had to catch a plane!)
Today I just backed off and watched this White Knight blow down the freeway, gave a wish he didn't get tagged, the THP works that area fairly often, and he really showed off. He was out of sight in no time in that traffic. He drove that Monte like I used to drive mine. Wild and crazy.
He looked a lot younger too though. I hope his SS keeps him safe like The Grey Ghost has done me.
Hey Miche, can you maybe keep this colour workshop as a permanent one, and have other workshops along with it? I am getting so much "positive life energy" from this, for lack of a better way to describe it, I really don't want this one to end. What would be a problem if you had more than one workshop going at one time?
Just an idea...you are the moderator.
LLM
Lar
Lar,
Technically, all the workshops on this blog can always be going at any time, not just the one that's currently "up" when you log in. Just go to the list of past workshops to the right on your screen, called "Previous Posts" or you can also access them through the other list called "archives"...and you can add comments wherever you want to. What I can do is also, anytime one of you adds a comment to an old workshop, send round an email to the "regulars" here to let them know the discussion is opening up again.
Another option is, at any time if enough of you (let's say 3 or more) request it, I can take a former workshop and reopen it as the current one, or do an update, Part 2, to renew a discussion that is particularly intriguing. Just ask! I'm open to suggestions on how to run these at any time!
Grey: I have been thinking about grey, too, Lar. I think of your color as a charcoal grey...more than black...I know thru time you have worn it a lot and if I ever got you a clothing pressie I got that color for you. I like it too, always have, since high school.
Recently The Mad Scotsman and I went on a search for The Right Grey or Just Plain Grey. To paint our hallway, we had fixated on that as the color we wanted, with creamy white trim. You would not believe how hard it was to find it! We had paint samples in every range from baby blue to lavender to outright purple, calling themselves grey! Finally we took a piece of matt from a photo we framed, that was the right plain grey, to a paint store and they did the computer/camera thing on it and came up with the exact match, just a shade lighter. We've been painting this week and it looks so great! I am surprised at how pleasing and soothing grey can be. It's not really boring or noncommital as you might think...it's a calming neutral color. And I love that you can wear any other color with it. I remember always teaming it up with bits of magenta back in the '60s!
I love the discussion between Lar and Linc about nightclub reds!
And Eileen's point about light...very good. It makes me think, once again, about these grey rainy days with grey stone walls here and then these INTENSE almost NEON splashes of flowers in people's gardens and public gardens...it's as if they flowers ARE their own source of light. It is so startling and makes me smile.
Ok, got to get this day moving here!
Have a good Sattidy, all! I will flit this workshop later in the day/evening and let you know, once Jill Kiefer and I have tweaked it so it's ready. I think you will find it a great seguay from this one...
SB
Red...red...red.
Blue red and a funny sort of soothing pale battleship (seriously) in the office. SB can tell you the hysterics we had with color samples on the wall...from blues...yellows...and greens...only to be told by Handyman he "typically didn't like those colors?" mmmmm....grrrrrr.
The red, left over from Prince Regent's tangent for a Japanese warrior type room, would not leave...I liked the color and am planning to add a copper wash to it.
As jarring as it sounds the room...only 9x9 works. Once the oak computer desk is put in there it will be a definite "masculine" room, but not so much so tht I cannot work in there.
Verrrrrrry different from the tone of the rest of the house.
Lar, thank you for the nice words. It came, in part from private discussions SB and I have had over the 3 years we have known each other.
I loved your car story. Mine is/was a miles deep black 1965 rag-top Buick Wildcat. Long as a boat and fast as all get out. From the rear it looked like a CHP cop car...can't tell you the number of time people pulled over only to sit dropped jawwed as we blew by on Pacific Coast Highway. (SB knows how much I miss that stretch of road between Santa Barbara and Santa Monica.)
On to the next workshop.
Outlaw (who had to log in annon-eee-mouse as I'm not on my home computer.)
Oh...and another thing..or 2:
Lar...don't doubt your skill...I'm not an expert...but, I do know what touches me...and your words do. (so there)
Color analysis. Back when that was popular (eons ago thta would be) I had such done and was a summer/fall mix because of my brown eyes. It fit then with what appealed to me...mostly it does not now. There just may be something to Debbie's assertion that our color needs/wants changes as our life experiences change.
Outlaw
Hi Spirit Bear, I check in with your site now and again to see what you are interested in at the moment. I couldnt resist colour!! to me colour is the most important emotional communication, therapy and muse. Most of the time when I pick up a brush to paint colour is the architect and the power behind everything. I am not sure what the piece is going to look like at the end as even with initial preconceived ideas the clour takes over and changes everthing to fit around it.I start off with an idea of which clours to use aready in my head but after the first session of painting the will always change into what they really want to be. I often feel that oil paint is alive as it so often dictates how it wants to be painted but the same is true of colour. It can take your breath away. my subject is important to me but it is the colour that defines each direction that i go on to. Colour is every emotion that we feel, a techniclour diary. I liked your picture of Scotland with the sea clashing on the headland! muted colours and bright colours all have a story to tell.Happy seeing. seabows
seabows, it is always a joy to hear from you! your relationship with colour is so clearly evident in your paintings. I still have new experiences with your painting we bought. The other night I looked up and saw it in the dark, no lights on, just a bit of pale light thru curtains from street lamps. It was so haunting, a whole new painting in that light.
Bob, my husband (Scottish) is the one who took that photae you are talking about, from the lighthouse. He is a really good photogrpher.
Thanks for checking in, we always love to hear from you.
happy painting!
Spiritbear
HI Spirit Bear
I love the way paintings change colour in different light. I try painting in different lights and different times of the day, favourite is painting in candle light or with just one low light bulb light at night! I often have a surprise in the morning when I see the work in daylight! sometimes good sometimes bad! Ive just spent a month in Cornwall and am so excited about the colours there! So intense, pure and vibrant, makes you feel your eyes are wide open taking in extra shades!! cant wait to try and create them. strong warm light and ancient monoliths! Must admit I like everywhere there is light and sea. Scotlands light is another favourite it is so clean and white at times and contrasts beautifully with the darker waters.
so breathtaking. I too remember childhood colours differently to present day colours as with everything age gives all things different perspectives.finding new colours is the most exciting thing!well its been nice to join in all your thoughts. bye keep colouring!!!
seabows, ah, that explains then, how your work seems magical whatever the light in which I view it! I wonder if many other artists paint in the kind of light (or lack thereof) you are talking about...after all, isn't that the way the masters must have done much of their painting, before electricity?
You should, someday, visit New Mexico in the USA...painters come there from everywhere to paint in that light and see those colours...and the sky. There is nothing quite like it. I love Scotland and the contrasts of dark and light...the intensity of flowers next to the grey walls in the smirr and fog...but when I go back to New Mexico it is as if someone turned the lights back on...or to suddenly be in a technicolor movie after black and white.
thank you again for stopping by. I'm starting a new workshop tomorrow that you might find of interest, so please check back.
Take care,
Spiritbear
Post a Comment
<< Home