Bright and bold color is such a wonderful thing. It's happy and festive and makes me want to smile. Except it does seem to offend those folks who think brown and adult must go together. Who said?
Now, I really don't have anything against the color brown -- so long as I don't have to live with it. It's a safe color, I suppose. Everyone accepts brown. It's a standard of sorts. Like oak furniture. Everyone loves oak. Except me. I prefer mahogany or cherry and I really like distressed black wood. But I digress.
I recently painted a bedroom bright green. Kind of a lemon green, if that makes any sense at all. I'd purchased the paint from The Home Depot a year ago. I meant to paint the room but everyone else's art projects -- those I get paid for especially -- always took priority. I finally decided to plunge ahead and do it anyway.
I love it! It's cheerful and happy. My mother -- a typical brown person -- looked at it and said she hoped I had good sunglasses. I do. But using them would defeat the purpose. Fortunately, she gets to live in her brown world while I stay happy in my bright one.
I've always liked bright colors. Pink (every little girl loves pink don't they?), then green, then as an adult blue and, even later, red. Somehow I missed the purple stage. So now I'm back to green. It's a different shade than before but I am much older and much less constrained about what I should do.
I did get vindicated recently. Has anyone seen the HGTV Dream Home special? That bright green room with the beautiful black furniture? That's my green. And I bought the paint a year ago. Well, I can't swear it's the same green. I haven't gone down and gotten a color swatch and tested to be sure. But it looks the same on television and that's good enough for me. A sophisticated, bright green room as part of HGTV's Dream Home. Yeah!
At art shows, it's always interesting to me the reactions of different people. Brown lovers dismiss my art as for children. Never mind that it might be a chicken. Children rarely do chickens. In fact, I've never seen a child fall in love with a chicken. A cat, yes. A dog, okay. A turtle, a frog, a duck. Many, many things. But not a chicken.
Anyway, bright and colorful doesn't have to be for a child. I adore the people who come gushing up, thrilled by the bright colors. They tell me it's so hard to find something colorful that's suitable for an adult. Go figure.
I don't find that in areas where folk art is appreciated. People who like folk art tend to want something different. I love great paintings. But I don't want to do what everyone else has done before. What would be the point? It doesn't make me any less talented or my work any less sophisticated. In fact, Webster's says that sophisticated is fashionable and complicated. That describes my work perfectly. The colors are those you see on runways and the detailed layers certainly aren't simple.
Coastal areas also tend to embrace color. I guess it's okay to be happy at the beach. Maybe that's why I've always loved the beach so much.
But we can be happy at home too, no matter where home is located. We don't always have to surround ourselves with safe colors and what everyone else is doing or has done. We can dare to be different.
Next time you head to art show, check out the artists' with the bright colors. You might surprise yourself and walk away with a smile on your face and something colorful for your home.
Now, I really don't have anything against the color brown -- so long as I don't have to live with it. It's a safe color, I suppose. Everyone accepts brown. It's a standard of sorts. Like oak furniture. Everyone loves oak. Except me. I prefer mahogany or cherry and I really like distressed black wood. But I digress.
I recently painted a bedroom bright green. Kind of a lemon green, if that makes any sense at all. I'd purchased the paint from The Home Depot a year ago. I meant to paint the room but everyone else's art projects -- those I get paid for especially -- always took priority. I finally decided to plunge ahead and do it anyway.
I love it! It's cheerful and happy. My mother -- a typical brown person -- looked at it and said she hoped I had good sunglasses. I do. But using them would defeat the purpose. Fortunately, she gets to live in her brown world while I stay happy in my bright one.
I've always liked bright colors. Pink (every little girl loves pink don't they?), then green, then as an adult blue and, even later, red. Somehow I missed the purple stage. So now I'm back to green. It's a different shade than before but I am much older and much less constrained about what I should do.
I did get vindicated recently. Has anyone seen the HGTV Dream Home special? That bright green room with the beautiful black furniture? That's my green. And I bought the paint a year ago. Well, I can't swear it's the same green. I haven't gone down and gotten a color swatch and tested to be sure. But it looks the same on television and that's good enough for me. A sophisticated, bright green room as part of HGTV's Dream Home. Yeah!
At art shows, it's always interesting to me the reactions of different people. Brown lovers dismiss my art as for children. Never mind that it might be a chicken. Children rarely do chickens. In fact, I've never seen a child fall in love with a chicken. A cat, yes. A dog, okay. A turtle, a frog, a duck. Many, many things. But not a chicken.
Anyway, bright and colorful doesn't have to be for a child. I adore the people who come gushing up, thrilled by the bright colors. They tell me it's so hard to find something colorful that's suitable for an adult. Go figure.
I don't find that in areas where folk art is appreciated. People who like folk art tend to want something different. I love great paintings. But I don't want to do what everyone else has done before. What would be the point? It doesn't make me any less talented or my work any less sophisticated. In fact, Webster's says that sophisticated is fashionable and complicated. That describes my work perfectly. The colors are those you see on runways and the detailed layers certainly aren't simple.
Coastal areas also tend to embrace color. I guess it's okay to be happy at the beach. Maybe that's why I've always loved the beach so much.
But we can be happy at home too, no matter where home is located. We don't always have to surround ourselves with safe colors and what everyone else is doing or has done. We can dare to be different.
Next time you head to art show, check out the artists' with the bright colors. You might surprise yourself and walk away with a smile on your face and something colorful for your home.
Comments
Post a Comment