What Color Has Taught Me About Myself

I believe that color is the only reason that I was drawn into art. I remember at a very young age cutting out pictures of jewel toned gems on paper and pasting them onto a golden paper crown, salivating.  Not drooling, just responding to something that really drenched my psyche with deep, creative bliss.

Mustard with Old Vine Zin - Napa, oil on panel, 18" x 24"

Over the years I have lived a creative life, have taken art classes in high school, and graduated from Brooks Institute of Photography. But really, color didn’t play a tremendous role just yet.
 
When my daughters were in school, I took a few classes from The Secret Garden in Kenwood, and learned about tole painting on boxes. The moment I started moving the red paint around, painting those little red strawberries, I was hooked. Again, salivating. I painted a few boxes, lots of fruit and a Santa Claus. I was certain that I was destined for something much more significant and seriously went about the process of learning how to paint, and I wanted to paint well.
 
After taking many classes from SRJC Art Department and loving every minute of it, I sought out a painting instructor under whom I could study. Susan Sarback is a master painter and colorist who paints in the lineage of Monet. After ten years, I learned everything I needed to know about color from her. She also opened my eyes to the color theory of Josef Albers, and between the two, I became very competent in the mastery of color.
 
When I am painting I am actively looking into color, and it feeds me. Over time I have been curious how and why it speaks to me so deeply and wonder if I am just one lone, color geek. I doubt it, since it is a key ingredient in the field of design.
 
Here’s What Color Has Taught Me About Myself:

• Color is rich and luxurious. It adds luxury to my life. It speaks to my deepest core in a very relevant way that feeds and nourishes me. Imagine finding the thing that feeds you, and then ignoring it. Once you know what it is you cannot ignore it. I need the luxury and richness of color, and need to gaze into it.

 

• I really like puzzles, figuring things out. My paintings are big puzzles. A colleague looked at my notes for a painting and said it looked like a science experiment. My friend regarded a painting in process and commented to me that it looked like a puzzle. To complete the puzzle I need to find and implement a certain number of harmonious pieces that don’t have a preset design. It’s like Sudoku, in a way, except Sudoku is pre-designed. Color has taught me to be innovative and to enjoy investigating a mystery.

 

• For years I have painted landscape and still life paintings, putting color together in a certain alchemy and rhythm, laying color on top of color with my a painting knife. Many daubs of color have become an intricate way of life, full of rich color textures and the inspiration of light and shadow. Color, wrapped in the bundle of art and meaning, has given me an exceptionally unique, inspired way of life.

 

• I see a great deal of color. The most complex colors, the somber hues, are often in the shadows, and the most difficult to deconstruct. A shadow in the woods could be a magenta, viridian, yellow ochre, cobalt blue kind of mix, (you never really know, you have to see it). All a little tricky, because too many hues combined together can result in a muddy, uninteresting mess of a color. Color has given me a talent for seeing many components of coloration in a hue, and I see all of it in my every day life. Whether I am painting or strolling down a path or cooking, I am entertained and intellectually challenged by color.

 

• Color is potent. It grips me. In my modern work I wield color to articulate a singular feeling, emotion or impression. Color, thoughtfully and artfully crafted together, shapes a language, a collection of parts working and harmonizing and opposing one another.
  
  These parts, these blocks of color, speak deeply and eloquently in connection with the unspoken whisperings of my spirit and psyche. I speak my fears, and the color speaks hope and beauty. I speak my celebrations and the color declares rhapsodic bliss. Color has given me a language to creatively express visually what I feel in my heart.

We are all born with a unique blend of attributes, strengths and sensitivities. How fortunate we are when we can see the subtle beauty that lies beneath the obvious, and cultivate an inner oasis of innovation and creativity.