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This week, I’ve been ‘touching Colours,’ to quote the first book seen–John Hoofnail’s 1764 ‘The Painter’s Companion –found in the amazing Stephen L. Wolf Collection at Historic Deerfield Memorial Library. 
 
Wolf owned and operated S. Wolf’s & Sons, a NYC family business began in 1869. He built the premier private library on all things color and paint and varnish and theory, including Newton, Syme, David Hay, George Field, Chevreul, Munsell, Burris-Meyer—just to name a few. 

I am so thankful for my Library Research Fellowship to use the Wolf Collection for my project Prismatic Utopia. Reading these books will further situate the Shaker’s cutting-edge use of color in the early 1800s, during the age of ‘harmonious colour.’
 
Images
--Field, Chromatic Equivalents 
--Hay, The Laws of Harmonious Colouing
--Kyan, Elements of Light
--Church, Colour
--Syme, Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours
--Hay, Nomenclature of Colours
--Masury’s Ready-made paints
--Chevreul, Des Couleurs
--Bacon, Theory of Colouring
--Field’s, Chromatography
--Hoofnail, The Painter’s Companion
 

Find more information on the Library Fellowships, here

a scheme of colors

A project; a contrivance; a plan of something to be done; a design.  Thus we may say to form, a scheme, to lay a scheme, to contrive.

A representation of the aspects of the celestial bodies.

I’m scheming in colors.
I’m arranging folders.
I’m packing poems into suitcases.
I’m lining up little watercolor tins

I’ll be scheming in colors as a Library Research Fellow
at Historic Deerfield using their Wolf Color book collection

 [Moses Harris, ‘scheme of colours’ found in Alexandra Loske’s ‘The Book of Colour Concepts ]

[scheme definition 1828 Websters]

dive into each color

drop into rooms skyed
stand on floors ochred
wind swifts chromed
wheel barrows greened

impromptu

studio still lives
hilma postcards
pigment processes
morning quick collages
harris tweed color considerations

movement
 
 
rocking
             
rusty red cradles
painted the colors of fallen leaves
 
                                                                 
body
 
washed and enshrouded in
garment of celestial gold
 
                                                                                                
shimmers
 
shines, alights
 
 
hoist
 
onto chrome green bier
green symbolizes growth
 
 
movements            
not static
 
all is concert
 




last year after attending
Cradled at Shaker Museum,
I wrote the above poem, ‘movement’

Cradled is now on view at
Make Hauser & Wirth LA

image, The Shakers A World in the Making, Vitra Design Museum

decoding colors

how many colors in each poem?
where are the rainbows?

blues greens golds
yellows browns chartreuse
pink reds and maroons

color decoding

workrooms now stilled

the swirling tasks

wound round

glowing as 

fluorescent sunshine

Farewell Fruitlands.  Thanks to all at Fruitlands and The Trustees and all that visited 'anything but drab' over the last six months.  So grateful. 

’anything but drab’ on view 
(4 more days) thru Sunday Nov 2
Fruitlands Museum,Harvard, MA
open Thursday to Sunday, 10am-4pm 

big thanks to Curator Christie Jackson
for inviting me to collaborate with her
& to make a project in a former
Shaker building 

--thanks to the Trustees ARC staff aka Archives
--thanks to Fruitlands Stewardship team
--thanks to all the behind the scenes Trustees staff & The Trustees
--thanks to Kate Wool for the stunning photographs
.
thanks to everyone that stopped by
to view the exhibition,
to fold paper into books,
to watch me dip my hands in an indigo dye bath,
to listen to poetry and
to hear us talk about color.

I'm so grateful. Thank you.

here from there

a 1974 pot luck dinner
with a neighbor’s
documentary film
The Shakers
.
many stops
steps in-between
linking Shakers
.
distilled into a 
10 minuture presentation
for Williamstown Cultural District
Monday Oct 27, 7-8:30pm
at Images Cinema
.
.
Join me & 2 other artists
for talks & discussion & snacks

color mandate

dive into each color
drop into rooms clad with sky
stand on floors ochred

……

Join us tomorrow October 18
for a ‘colorful conversation'

Curator Christie Jackson
and I will be talking color
at Fruitlands Museum
2pm-3:30pm
.
.
.
Fruitlands Museum
102 Prospect Hill Road
Harvard MA 01451

Please join Curator Christie Jackson and myself on Saturday October 18th at 2:00pm for a ‘Colorful Conversation’ at Fruitlands Museum, Harvard, MA.

We will discuss the Shakers and the use of color–paints & dyes–had in making these two exhibitions, as well as, view the two exhibitions currently on view at Fruitlands Museum, ‘a good many hands‘ (curated by Jackson) and ‘anything but drab’ (installation by Brece Honeycutt).

Fruitlands Museum, 102 Prospect Hill Road, Harvard, MA.  More info HERE

images by Kate Wool

yesterday Composer Kevin Seigfried
led a group of us, singing and walking
up the Shaker Holy Hill at the former
Harvard Shaker site

where songs manifested into mantras
golden trumpets sounded off
gold chains circled stones

alerted to warbling anthems, singing
'A Short Prayer for a Sinking World’
written for an 1849 cholera epidemic
sung now with "no doubting or unbelieving spirit"

this morning reading the new Vitra Design Museum 
catalog for 'The Shakers A World in the Making'--
“We must grapple with the difference between ourselves
and others and unmake the distance between within and
without to find solidarity in times of division.” [pg 17]

Thanks to the BASSG for organizing yesterday’s memorable magical
walk with Kevin Seigfried, his singers and community.