Color Me Beautiful
Color me beautiful!
For those of us old enough to remember, that phrase might evoke a hazy memory of the 1980’s publishing sensation, Color Me Beautiful. This bestseller asked the wardrobe-defining question: Which season are you? No matter which terrible power suit with linebacker-sized shoulder pads you were fated to wear, it was vitally important that its color match the “season” you discovered yourself to be if you wanted to be seen at your best.
Beyond determining the correct palette of your clothes, finally knowing which season you were potentially unlocked the riddle of who you might be personally. I remember many friends - don’t judge us for our youth! - testifying with the rapturous fervor of revealed truth: I am a spring! I’m an autumn! Hearing this now, poignancy sounds in those declarations; each phrase, a poem in embryo. (This is especially true for those who spake aloud I am a winter, a verdict overflowing with pathos and the apparently destined wardrobe of a biblical prophet straight out of Ecclesiastes.)
The idea behind Color Me Beautiful, however simplified, was sound. Color theory is rooted in the understanding that color is always changing; a single color has the ability to shift and change depending upon the color it’s adjacent to. More simply, color exists only in relationship. Nearness calls forth revelation. That’s the reason why I never wear red or pink - colors which, because of my skin tone, make me look jaundiced - and why I often wear shades of green - which bring out my eyes.
Josef Albers, the painter and color theoretician, called this simultaneous contrast and remarked that it “ . . . was not just a curious optical phenomenon, but the very heart of painting.” Fascinated by the infinite and ever-evolving relationships between colors, Albers, along with wife, Anni, devoted his entire creative life to the attempt to perceive, suggest and depict them.
But here’s a paradox: how color is perceived is both highly individual and, likewise, specifically cultural.
I’ve experienced this repeatedly in the twenty years I’ve worked with flowers. For every rose petal edged with a faint blush or bruising of another color which I notice - and which inspires one combination of companion colors to me - another designer will notice an undertone in that same petal -which evokes a different set of color combinations to her. As with many relationships, what seems subtle to me, seems obvious and unworthy of notice to her. The surprise of this still delights me.
Both of us run up against a limit, though.
Recent experiments have demonstrated that the brain perceives color differently when there is a specific word or name for it then when there is not. In fact, people who speak languages which have more individual names for the range of a color can perceive more variations in that color than people whose languages lack those names. Russian vocabulary, for example, contains more names for shades of blue than English; consequently, Russians can identify more gradations of blue.
Here, then, is a not small question: How do we perceive what we lack words for?
How do we take in a relationship which we cannot name?
Images, I think, offer clues. Words, gathered into poems, do, too,
One poem might begin like this: I am a winter.
One poem could observe that it is a time of year when color, however changed, remains present, even though it seems leached out of the world. In the midst of pale surroundings, the eye is restless and eager. A poem could observe that the year passing, like most years, had its measure of terrors and well-earned tears, but, also its beauties and honest mercies; these stand in relation to each other. A poem could point out that winter days hurtle towards the shortest, and, therefore, the darkest day of the year; this same poem could also notice that the day following is already a bit longer and, therefore, holds the promise of more light. This poem would say that those two days exist in relation to each other, and that you, like those days, stand in relation to both.
This poem would describe what is near you. Carefully. It would describe who is near you. This poem would perceive, suggest, and depict how that nearness reveals every color you contain - the obvious colors, of course, but the subtle ones as well (and the hidden colors unknown to you). If those combinations are sometimes unworkable, other harmonize gracefully. You exist in relationship to both.
One poem might take its closing words from the title of a silly forgotten book. But this poem would alter the punctuation. The words would shift and change, like colors do, depending upon what they’re adjacent to.
Color me.
Beautiful.
(Click on image to see full size.)
