Yesterday I was looking at a friend’s vacation photos of her trip out West and was totally transported by an image of evergreen trees reflected in water. I just looked and looked at that wonderful, healing green — my favorite color — and it was like a long, quenching drink to my wintery soul. Ahhh, green. I knew there was a reason I painted my parsonage study a hue that could most accurately be described as Screaming Kermit Green. I need color.
Color has an energy and inspiration all its own. Lately, I have been wearing lots of black and grey. It’s not necessarily because I want to, it’s more that the garments I like (and that FIT!) come in that color, they go with everything, they’re practical, I can jazz them up with a scarf or tights or something. I cannot bring myself to wear colors that don’t feel good to my eyes and heart. I could no more don a bright red garment than I could paint my lips purple — it would actually hurt. I don’t like most reds on me, they’re all wrong, it throws me off even to try on red garments. Please pigeons, don’t ever force a garment on yourself just because it fits or is “pretty much” what you want. What we wear does affect our mood; don’t abuse yourself by wearing something that offends your spirit.
Cheap colors depress me and that’s another reason to stick to grey, black and other neutrals: they’re less expensive to produce. I’d rather have a luxe-feeling black shirt than a cheap saturation of a potentially beautiful blue or green any day.
One of the reasons I love to travel to Central America in the wintertime is that Latino culture is so gorgeously colorful, it’s like receiving a dose of Soul Vitamins just being around all of that vibrant splendor. Oranges and pinks and yellows and reds and bright blues and …such a brilliant contrast to the austerity of our New England winter landscape, where sage green is really a “pop” of color.
Lately I find myself particularly drawn to this color, which the magazines call “cerulean” ( what a beautiful word! CERULEAN). I don’t love these earrings but oh, the color!
That’s all I really wanted to say. It’s early and pre-coffee, so that’s why I sound less effervescent than usual. I ain’t quite awake.
Colors are food for the soul. Eat wisely.
Suzani from The Loaded Trunk, my cousin Roni’s online store.
Roni is in India right now shopping for the store. A sari vendor in Delhi.
when I was planning last night what I might wear today (and realizing I need to do some laundry, pronto!), I thought about wearing a black sweater with my denim skirt and black/grey tights…but felt so DARK and everything else is so DARK and blah. I LOVE to wear reds and fuschias and purples (and they are also my best colors, so yay!). Alas, they all need to be washed, so I’m going with a grayish blue. Luckily, blue is also one of my best colors! 🙂 I love to wear color, especially in winter in the midwest, where everything is gray gray gray gray gray.
Cerulean is one of Joanthan’s favorite family of colors. By family, it can be interpreted in many ways: some quite light and even cast green.
I love colours as well–mainly, these days, I knit so I have beautiful stuff in colours I love. Although right now, I’ve got a black extra-fine merino wool cardi on the needles.
In the past 12 months, I did a cardi in each of the following colours: dark lavender, olive, petrol blue, apple green, raspberry pink, chocolate brown. Black is on the needle for my ‘idiot knitting’ to bring to meetings, but for my ‘I’ve got to escape verbal activity’ work, I’ve got a teal one to start. There’s some citron tweedy yarn in the closet that I’m having internal debates about.
Yes, my name is Wendy, and I’m a knit-aholic…
Maybe red is your “only on my cold dead carcass” or “draw liver enzymes on that woman, STAT” color family. (Colors often get there because they make you LOOK like a cold, dead carcass.) Mine are orange, gold, and most yellows… Don’t care for that pale baby pink, because pastel doesn’t usually do it for me; give me magenta or hot pink or royal blue instead.
I love color too. Have always dressed in pastels. The last few years I have been adding more rich colors – royal blues, purple, bright green – have gotten so many compliments 🙂 Last summer I was dying to get a sunny coral something-or-other, but sadly, it made me look sickly.
I just completed my work for two seminary degrees in December. To celebrate, on the day I turned in my final assignment, I took a “Christmas road trip” with my best friend. It featured driving a couple of hours each way for the best barbecue in NC and a visit to a charity open house at the home and studio of artist Bob Timberlake. It had been decorated to the nines by the good people of the local garden clubs, and it was a visual feast. Timberlake lives and works in a converted 100 year old barn. Its broad, wooden beams and old, wavy glass windows are enlivened by treasured quotes scratched into them by hand. I found one especially delightful: “Color is the daily bread of the eyes.” (quote from Frank Webb, artist)
[Love it! And congratulations on finishing your coursework! – PB]
Ah, colour… I always had a heck of a time with those Colour Me Beautiful things because they said, “You have red hair, thus you are Warm, thus you should wear lots of orange and gold and brown and peach and CAMEL!” No. Just…no.
So I just wore what I thought suited me (black, red, blue, green) and paid no attention. Plus, I love those colours and seeing them makes me happy. What better way to see them than putting them on?
Then I found the Knitting Tango. People have begged the nice lady to do a typology for other hair colours and, as always, it’s not completely one-box-or-the-other, but if you have any type of red hair and are a bit clueless as to colours, try this for a start:
http://knittingtango.blogspot.com/2008/02/redhead-color-typology.html
I am a High Contrast redhead. I am about to prove this by getting married (four more days to go…whee!) in a white dress. Ivory makes me look like death is imminent.
@Wendy, it may not be a cheap addiction, but at least you get the feeling of achievement when you finish a piece of clothing! And knitting lowers blood pressure. Science says so.
Plus, you can knit even when there are three inches of snow on the ground and civilisation as we know it has ground to a halt because it never snows around here and we’ve run out of grit for the roads.
Not that I’m bitter or stressed. Nooo.
I’m going to find a nice picture of a blue lake now…
Exegesis Fairy, I have broken my own record and completed an allover cable-knit cardi (okay, short sleeved, more like a waistcoat) in about 3 weeks. Mainly over my Christmas break in Buffalo, NY, which was MUCH snowier than here in the UK! And yes, I can knit when everything is in standstill (and do so…and at meetings..)
Congrats on the upcoming wedding–we WILL want pics!
Does your cousin’s store have a website? I love all the bright colors!! [My heavens, how could I have forgotten to provide a link! It’s http://www.loadedtrunk.com/. If you order something, tell her Cousin Vicki sent you! – PB]
When I entered the professional world one of the best gifts I received was a personalized color class. I learned that the right shades of color make all the difference. For instance I can’t wear orange red but I can wear blue red. I can’t wear bright yellow but can wear butter yellow. Instead of black as the go to I use navy as the go to. Instead of camel brown I use ginger brown. The class also taught me that if there is some item in your wardrobe you love but is the wrong color, try to add the right color around your neck/face. I highly recommend learning your personal colors. [Not to deny your personal experience, Marlene, but I have found that “getting one’s colors done” can result in a load of hooey, and limit some women to colors that actually don’t work for them, or are dead boring, or whatever. I think we should take all of those recommendations with a grain of salt. For instance, since my hair color changes all the time and because I know how to use make-up, I can wear a lot of colors that I’m sure the professionals would say are a no-no. the same is true for others. I meet too many women who put on a garment that looks gorgeous on them and then reject it saying, “No, I can’t wear that color.” We can’t give too much authority to those systems, and too many women do.- PB]