Madder Red
Crimson Red
Scarlet Crimson
French Plum
Beetroot Red
Spiny Lobster
Barnwood Red
Peachwood Red
Fast Yellow
Woollen Yellow
Bark yellow
Gold Yellow
Dead Leaf Yellow
Ochre yellow
Lemon Yellow
Green Yellow
Orange yellow
Pale Orange
Apricot Orange
Tumeric Orange
21 March marks
World Poetry Day &
International Color Day
The Shaker Sisters at Harvard MA recorded coloring (they wrote collouring) in their Journal. Coloring meant dyeing. Dyeing is making color. Dyeing is possibility.
This poem uses text from their Journal and will be part of an upcoming exhibition, ‘anything but drab’ at Fruitlands opening in May.
we collour
we color scarlet on stormy days
we color indigo when we are indefatigable
we color butternut roses blooming abundantly
we color prusy blue pick some pease
we color logwood smelling lilacs
we color fancy blue to match azure skies
we color slate silk with sicily sumac to match slanted rain
we color blue spirits for drab woolens
we color cochineal pink roses
we color purple standard
we color considerable
a scheme of colours
a tree of love, a tree of life
a book unfolds, an accordion, an accord
a work in progress for Fruitlands Museum
sun drifting into rooms
onto walls gleaming with varnish
onto chrome yellow cabinets
onto reddish yellow floors
warmth emanates
energizing yellow
rises out of woodwork
rises into hearts
—excerpt from ROYGBIV poem & work in progress for ‘anything but drab’ coming to Fruitlands Museum May 2025
color
on pages
in pigments
in dyes
in jars
on yards of thread
been reading Shaker
manuscripts account books
and journals of work performed
been looking at collected
colors in jars
been working on a new book
project needing a rainbow of
threads
reds of cochineal and crimson
yellows of bark gold brown yellow green
greens invisible olive pea and myrtle
blues Prussian deep royal slate
drabs red sandy silver sage salmon and dove
purples crimson deep marron logwood lavender
browns fast damson fawn olive and claret
greys bark liver dark smoke batwings and doves
sending new year’s rainbows
joy and radiance for 2025
and thanks for your presence here
[studio doodle | work in progress for 2025 project
dye book from Harvard Shaker community]
setting the table
for new structures
for projects and places
and paper and poems
with color and watercolor
and natural dyes
moon circles orbs spray
—The Sun and the Moon, Jean Picart le Doux
—A Thousand Wildflowers, Dom Robert
—Color Rhythms or Panelf F, Sonia Delaunay
—Seven Seas, Kiki Smith
details from Tapestries in Wall Power! Modern French Tapestry from the Mailer national, Paris at The Clark
gathering gold—
glistening glittering mica chips
dandelion rainbow strands
molten orange M initialed
pleated dress of worship & work
golden orbed dawn
palest lemon goldenrod tuft
waves frozen, seedhead
mighty morning orb
drab drab drab
reddish drab
sandy drab
silver drab
sage drab
salmon drab
dove drab
beaver drab
glove drab
reading old dye books
the name tells all
"Imagine. Colours of the past, escaping from the pages of old dye and pattern books. Persian blue, Raven, dainty blue, pomegranate flower, spiny lobster, winesoup, dove breast, golden wax, grass green, green sand, rotten olive, modest plum, agate...finding their way to streets of our cities, enlivening all we wear, all allied to dissipate the bleakness of the times."
From Dominique Cardon's introduction to 'The Dyer's Handbook Memoirs on Dyeing by a French Gentleman-Clothier in the Age of Enlightenment'
[Oxbow Books, 2016, pgs xi-xii]
+technicolor additions to Edward Deming Andrews text about dyes used by the Shakers at Watervliet
working on prototype for
an upcoming project
thanks Josef Albers
“Why colored paper instead
of pigment and paint”
-paper provides innumerable colors
-sources are easily accessible
(HTSI magazine)
--makes an inexpensive paper ‘palette’
-unnecessary mess, quick easy juxtaposition
--no spoiled or paint mixing failures
--no big equipment, but paste and cutter
--no drying time
--ease of solving problems
[from Josef Albers, ‘Interaction of Color:
50th Anniversary Collection,’ Yale University Press
2013, pgs. 6-7]
looking for brightneess
in rainbows and revision structures
on hand knit shawls dyed with goldenrod,
gathered at wasteplaces
stitched into circles emanating sunlight
