Color

banner: a long strip of cloth bearing a slogan or design, hung in a public place or carried in a demonstration or procession

these didn’t start as banners
yet, as a way to mark color on cloth
indigo, madder & coreopsis

later, hung on a Shaker cupboard
finally sewn into a series of twelve,
a perfect circle/perfectly round.
shaker studies 01-12
.
.
pardon the pun, but coming full circle,
dyeing these cloths lead me down a
path exploring the Shaker’s use of color

four years later, study 06 hangs as a banner in Williamstown, MA
and on Saturday, I will present my paper ’Prismatic Utopia,’ a threefold
exploration of Shaker color—practical, temporal & spiritual
at the Deerfield Fall Forum

Eyes on Art Town, 37 artists’ banners found in downtown Williamstown
A Rich & Varied Palette: Coloring New England’s Past at Historic Deerfield, 13/14 September

[a perfect circle/perfectly round. shaker studies.06, 2021 Indigo on muslin, coreopsis and indigo on found textile, dyed cotton thread]

The title is from a quote by two Shaker Brethren, Calvin Green & Seth Y. Wells (1823)—“A circle may be called a perfect circle when it is perfectly round.”

this is what research looks like-notes on a wall, folders on a table, books stacked high

this is how research is defined as a noun: the systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions

this is how research is defined as a verb: investigate systematically

looking forward to presenting my research Prismatic Utopia at the Deerfield Fall Forum ‘A Rich and Varied Palette: Coloring New England’s Past’ 13/14 September.

“Historic Deerfield’s 2024 Fall Forum, A Rich and Varied Palette: Coloring New England’s Past, convenes a group of leading researchers and scholars to explore the vast subject of color and its history. Research and publication in the history of color has been growing in recent decades, but few studies have examined color’s impact on specific cultural regions, such as New England. The program’s lectures will focus on the diverse topics of global colorants and textiles, lithoprints in 1840s New England, painted furniture at the Bath Academy, japanned furniture, Shakers’ color use and meanings, New England’s textile bleaching industries, chrome yellow and pink as pigments, and the paints and finishes of the Rockingham (Vermont) meeting house.”

More info HERE for in person or virtual registration.

Thanks to Merriam Webster for the definitions and to Historic Deerfield for the opportunity.  

five summers ago
harvested dahlias
stuck between sheets of paper
simmered, steamed
 
stacks of silhouettes, waited
suddenly, this summer,
their sense seeped in
 
was it seeing the blots of
Mary Gartside, seeking
flower essence through color?
 
fifty seven washed with
gouaches and watercolors
Inks of—daffodils, pine cones,
black walnuts, marigolds

Thanks to Alexandra Loske for alerting me to Gartside.

Her book, Mary Gartside:
Abstract Visions of Color at Thomas Heneage Books

Thanks to Naumkeag for the Artist Residency in 2019
where the dahlias were gathered.

Simultaneous
Synchronicity
Shaker Color
Sonia Delaunay
Sunrising
 
morning reading of Delaunay’s 
“magnetic language of colors”
“transcribing the poem into colors”
in Pascal Rousseau’s essay
 
“Not images, or objects in the 
traditional sense, but colours, lines
sensations, feelings. Pure inspiration.”
Sonia Delaunay
 
“And when light expresses itself fully,
everything is coloured.” Guillaume Apollinaire

[quotes and Delaunay images from
Sonia Delaunay, Tate Publishing, 2014]
 
[stack of shaker boxes from JKRussel Antiques]

french yellow oxide
chrome yellow
red ochre deep
red lead
chrome green
prussian blue
.
. 
color matching
Shaker Color Palette
.
.
So excited to be presenting
my paper Prismatic Utopia at
Historic Deerfield’s Fall Forum,
A Rich and Varied Palette:
Coloring New England’s Past,
September 13/14 2024

Info on Fall Forum found here,  Historic Deerfield

Second image Susan Buck's shaker pigments for
Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon. Thanks to 
Jerry Grant for his amazing stewardship of artists
seeking Shakers. And to Susan Buck for our recent
conversation regarding Shaker color and her paint
research. 

plants as prints as watercolors as thoughts as sky as poetry
.
‘Verbal creation, he [Seamus Heaney] writes,
 is an archaeological dig, 
“a dig for finds that end up being plants.” ‘

From Elaine Scarry’s book, Dreaming by the Book 
and Heaney's  book Feeling Into Words: Selected Prose 1968-78

Caretaker Farm CSA flowers and summer ‘dahlia series’
plant inks and gouache on dahlia mono print

started a summer series with
Mary Gartside’s colour blots
as inspiration


dahlia prints from Naumkeag Artist residency
daffodil ink from Suzi Banks Baum 
pinecone ink from Hancock

studio work table #workinprogress 
summer 2024 dahlia series
.

[second image, Gartside Yellow and Orange blots found in ‘Mary Gartside c. 1755-1819: Abstract Visions of Colour’ written by Alexandra Loske and published by Thomas Heneage Art Books]

“Painting is a form of poetry
Colors are words
Their reflections rhythms.
The completed painting,
a completed poem.”

Sonia Delaunay
[from Kunst Please podcast
9.20.2021]

Substitute ‘painting’ for?
stitching
natural dyeing
………..

Images from ‘Sonia Delaunay’ catalogue from Tate exhibition 2015
Postcard from ‘Sonia Delaunay: Living Art’ Bard Graduate Center 2024

is just blue, or azure sky blue?
red or scarlet poppy red?
pink or carnation pink?

In her 1898 book,
“The Use of Color in the Verse of
English Romantic Poets,” Alice Edwards Pratt 
delves deep into the poets 
“descriptive, discriminative, dramatic, aesthetic”
words of color
such as—
“pinky-silver’
“autumnal leaf like-red”
“purple-hectic”
“rose-ensanquined ivory”
and charts each poet’s color
by terms for--
“mountains and hills”
“sky, cloud and air”
“deep waters”


Happily I found Pratt whilst reading
Nicholas Gaskill’s essay, ‘Language and Psychology’
in the ‘A Cultural History of Color: 
In the Age of Industry’
edited by Alexandra Loske.

.

old spools
new threads
from a spooler


spool:  a rod or cylinder, usually having a hole running from end to end, and a rim at either end, upon which thread, wire, etc. is wound

spooler: one who or that which winds thread or yarn on spools

from 1983 Webster’s New 20th C Dictionary

setting the stage
for stitching

stitching is thinking
time whilst researching

“The meaning of a word -
to me- is not as exact as
the meaning of a color. 
Colors and shapes make a more
definite statement than words.”

Georgia O’Keeffe

color research continues