“The human eye can perceive over a million different varieties of color, but the human brain has better things to do than name them all.”
“Newton segmented the spectrum into just seven named colors:
the classic ROY G BIV divisions.”
“While this might have seemed arbitrary, much later research by anthropologists concluded that most cultures at least have names for
black, white, red, green, yellow and blue:
six basic color terms typically in that order, as if there were an innate hierarchy.”
[ from Neil Parkinson, “The History of Color: A Universe of Chromatic Phenomena”]
The Dandelion's pallid Tube
Astonishes the Grass
And Winter instantly becomes
An infinite Alas--
The Tube uplifts a signal Bud
And then a shouting Flower
The Proclamation of the Suns
That sepulture is o'er
Emily Dickinson
8 November 1881
Emily Dickinson's Poems: As She Preserved Them, edited by Cristanne Miller
Emily Dickinson poem sent as a letter. Note the impression of a dandelion on the page. American Antiquarian Society.
Spotted this dandelion a few weeks back.
Dandelion viewing Carisbrooke Castle, Isle of Wight
Dandelion.
Dandelion and Violets. Two of Dickinson’s favorites
90,000 artifacts (textiles, ceramics, furniture, ironwork….)
20,000 American & European imprints
3,000 record groups of manuscripts, trade cards, photographs, ephemera
7,500 plant specimens
1,000 acres
+Specialists, Conservators,
+Librarians, Archivists,
+Curators, Gardeners,
+Scientists, Fellows
“Research is a material”
and earlier this year,
as a Maker-Creator Fellow,
I explored Winterthur's Shaker collection
(and others) and loved every second
of researching, working with archivists,
conservators, curators,
fellows and librarians;
and walking on their incredible grounds.
Artists & Makers
consider applying for
Winterthur’s Maker-Creator Fellowship!
Happy to answer any questions.
Applications due 1/15/2024
Application info right HERE
fabric pieces include chair and rug tape & old cloth
sleeping mats & ottomans made from ‘plarn’ aka recycled plastic shopping bags
images from the exhibition, The Alchemy of Re.Use curated by Hettler.Tullmann for the Shaker Museum and on view at the Knitting Mill in Kinderhook NY
Thanks to Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon for the panel discussion about reuse and the necessity to make with one’s hands and use what we already have in hand.
series of ‘butterflies & moths’ collaged works over the past 6 months
.
and a Mary Oliver poem . . One or Two Things Don’t bother me. I’ve just been born.
The butterfly’s loping flight carries it through the country of the leaves delicately, and well enough to get it where it wants to go, wherever that is, stopping here and there to fuzzle the damp throats of flowers and the black mud; up and down it swings, frenzied and aimless; and sometimes
for long delicious moments it is perfectly lazy, riding motionless in the breeze on the soft stalk of some ordinary flower.
The god of dirt came up to me many times and said so many wise and delectable things, I lay on the grass listening
to his dog voice, crow voice, frog voice; now, he said, and now, and never once mentioned forever,
which has nevertheless always been, like a sharp iron hoof, at the center of my mind.
One or two things are all you need to travel over the blue pond, over the deep roughage of the trees and through the stiff flowers of lightning—some deep memory of pleasure, some cutting knowledge of pain.
. studio slanted light Shaker color research Mary Gartside’s colour blots circular stitching.
Mary Gartside (c. 1755-1819) published 3 books on color theory. Her 1808 An Essay on a New Theory of Colours is illustrated with these amazing ‘colour blots’ —abstracted views of ‘white, yellow, orange, green, blue, scarlet, violet and crimson.” Abstract before JMW Turner, before Kandinsky, before…………
Thanks to Alexandra Loske for her research on Gartside. [quotes and info from Alexandra Loske, ‘Color: A Visual History from Newton to Modern Color Matching Guides’]
Thursday December 10th marks the poet Emily Dickinson’s 190th birthday. Dickinson sent many poems to her friends in letters and as letters, often with a flower enclosed. During the 1800s, the Shakers communicated amongst their 19 villages with letters, setting aside time in their schedules to read these aloud to the sisters and brethren.
And how do these two strands weave together you might be wondering? These acts of correspondence inspired a project between the bookbinding studio at Camphill Village and me, the artist-in-residence at Hancock Shaker Village.
For the past months, we have been sending letters, books, poems and art materials back and forth. This course of action chosen, for we are unable to collaborate in person due to Covid-19.
Recently, I received this from one of my collaborators:
“I just wanted to touch base and thank you for the wonderful creation that we are so fortunate to be inspired by. Every time I see that original envelope my heart leaps with joy. And the poems are such a healthy nourishment for the soul.”
In light of Dickinson’s birthday and in hopes that President-Elect Biden and Vice President-Elect Harris will choose an inaugural poet, we offer a few of the poems that we have shared, “nourishment” for your souls.
Prayer Bowl by Al Hunter found in “When the Light of the World was Subdued, Our Songs came Through” edited by Joy Harjo
Necessity by Stuart Kestenbaum found in his collection of poetry, “How to Start Over”
When I am Among the Trees by Mary Oliver found in her “Devotions The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver”
Emily Dickinson, #1693, date unknown found in “The Poems of Emily Dickinson” edited by R. W. Franklin
The Shakers literally ‘colored their world’ from the interior and exterior of their buildings, to the objects they used and to the garments they wore.
Slowly this vibrant world began to dawn on me about a month into my residency. Was it when we examined their garments with a blue warp and red weft, a process they called ‘changeable,’ that renders a vibrating look to the coat or gown? Was it standing in the storage room and seeing painted pails all the colors of the rainbow? Was it being overwhelmed by the multiple yellow ochre hues of paint–peg rails, floor, built-in cupboard, window trim—contrasted with the blues, greens and reds of the objects in the dwelling room?
Hard to say if it was just one moment, but more likely an accumulation of hues over time that dazzled. The Shakers lived in a vibrant world, both interiorly, with their religious beliefs and exteriorly with their painted world. If only I could time travel back for a day, a week and take that color walk with them.
I invite you to take two color walks with me.
Next week on October 22 at 5:30pm via Zoom, Hancock Shaker Village Curator Sarah Margolis-Pineo and I will discuss my residency, the search for the Shaker palette through natural dyes and mine the collection for brilliantly colored examples.
Last week, I participated in ‘COLOR + ECOLOGY’ part of the The Common Thread Series, a collaboration with the Southern New England Fiber Shed and the Edna W. Lawrence Nature Lab at RISD. Laurie Brewer, RISD Museum Costume & Textiles Associate Curator + RISD Apparel Faculty Member along with Amy DuFault and Dora Mugerwa discussed ‘how color’s relationship to regional ecology and history impact the curation of how colors are represented in fashion and textiles’.
Large swathes of goldenrod grace the fields now and sway in the wind on this late summer day. We natural dyers long for this time of year when we can harvest the brilliant flowers that make an eye popping fluorescent yellow on cloth.
The Shakers dyed with many fall harvests—goldenrod, sumac, walnut—but didn’t wear yellow. Why I wonder didn’t they take advantage of these vast fields of bright flowers? Deborah Burns notes “goldenrod grows in neglected fields” and “where corn had once grown tall, goldenrod now replaced it.” A ‘neglected’ field did not exist on any Shaker farm, so, perhaps, the goldenrod was not as plentiful as it is now. I still search for the reason that Shakers didn’t wear yellow, but maybe it is as easy as yellow shows dirt more than a deep butternut cloth.
If you go to harvest goldenrod, you will not be the only one, for the pollinators are out in full force taking nectar and pollen from the goldenrod, making stores for the winter months.
I invite you to carry Mary Oliver’s fitting poem, Goldenrod, in your pocket as you seek pollinators amongst the fluorescent yellow inflorescences.
On roadsides, in fall fields, in rumpy bunches, Saffron and orange and pale gold,
in little towers, soft as mash, sneeze-bringers and seed-bearers, full of bees and yellow heads and perfect flowerlettes
and orange butterflies. I don’t suppose much notice comes of it, except for honey, and how it heartens the heart with its
blank blaze. I don’t suppose anything loves it except, perhaps, the rocky voids filled by its dumb dazzle.
For myself, I was just passing my, when the wind flared and the blossoms rustled, and the glittering pandemonium
leaned on me. I was just minding my own business when I found myself on their straw hillsides, citron and butter-colored,
and was happy, and why not? Are not the difficult labors of our lives full of dark hours? And what has consciousness come to anyway, so far,
that is better than these light-filled bodies? All day on their airy backbones they toss in the wind,
they bend as though it was natural and godly to bend,
they rise in a stiff sweetness,
in the pure peace of giving
one’s gold away.
Mary Oliver, Goldenrod fromNew and Selected Poems, 1992
Deborah E. Burns, Shaker Cities of Peace, Love and Union A History of Hancock Bishopric, (University Press of New England, 1993), pg. 190.
