Books

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

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.

“We look closely at the magic mirror, stand back from it, try to empty our minds of all else, strive to grasp the meaning of every colour, each one of which brings to mind memories of past impressions, which arrange themselves in an architecture as immortal and varied as the colours on the canvas, and build up our imagination, a landscape.”


images for ‘prismatic utopia’ taken at New Lebanon, Fruitlands, Hancock, Canterbury, Winterthur & many studios in between
 
[quote | Marcel Proust on Art and Literature 1896-1919,’ translated by Sylvia Townsend Warner]

juxtaposition
simultaneity

reading about the Royal Pavilion Brighton
pigments & colors reds pinks blues yellows
used across the ocean at the same time
by Shakers on interior building surfaces

techniques of David Ramsay Hay found in his 1828 book
“The Laws of Harmonious Colouring Adapted to House Painting’
‘architectural colour schemes’
personal taste
function of building
function of the room
geographical location
orientation to the light source

taking into account
surfaces materials and objects
unity balance and harmony
coloured furniture

Shakers used the
technology of the time
new pigments & concepts
a colour zeitgeist.a rainbow wave ridden

Thanks again to Dr. Alexandra Locke for your colour guidance and amazing new publication

[Hay information from Dr. Alexandra Loske’s new book, ‘The Royal Pavilion Brighton: A Regency Palace of Colour and Sensation’ as well as images from the book]

[Shaker gift drawings from ‘Heavenly Visions: Shaker Gift Drawings and Gift Songs’ curated by Frances Morin]

pale sky blue
fluorescent sunshine
celestial gold
purple standard
cochineal pink
claret scarlet
cherry violet
chrome green
indigo blue
reddish yellow
slate drab

radiant rainbow

prototyping prismatic utopia
pages and poems

tables set
with colors
unfolding
.
with color
captured 
in jars

‘anything but drab’ on view at Fruitlands Museum
Banqueting Table in Colour exhibition at Brighton Pavilion
.
.
I’ll be onsite at Fruitlands Museum this Saturday August 9 for a pop-up book making workshop from 12pm - 3pm.

Fruitlands Museum, 102 Prospect Hill Road, Harvard, MA. Thursday - Sunday, 10am til 4pm.

And today, August 6th is Arrival Day.  The day Mother Ann and 8 followers arrived in the port of New York City.  251 years ago today. An egalitarian pacifist non-materialist communal society still going strong today at Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village.  

protoypting
prismatic
utopia

prototyping utopia coined by Sarah Margoilis-Pineo

prismatic utopia my ongoing poetry & prose/research project