Live Inspired!
Inspirational Color Quote of the Week: Colors Amber, Gold, Orange, Green, Yellow… Creating Synergy! “[Color, always an attraction in any Missoni collection, is here in abundance -- but more subdued.] Amber, gold, orange, kind of light olive-greens and yellow, but very mixed, ... They're never, never precise colors. Lots of mixture. Lots of soft interpretation.” -- Angela Missoni (fashion designer) What do you think? Amber, gold, orange, light olive-green and yellow. A wonderful array of soft and soothing colors, and each provides its unique contribution to the mix. Olive-green perhaps supplying the background. Orange, yellow and gold standing out a little more; and amber, as a combination of several of these colors, lends coherence to the scene. A nice contrast to the usual way many of us focus on color, looking for example for ones that stand out as distinct and bright. No wonder Angela Missoni has become known for her creativity, and no wonder she has become a world-renown fashion designer and president of her company. As befits her profession, she has clearly put a lot of effort, blood, sweat and tears to develop just the right combination. Hmm, what about you? It’s about colors of course—what we like; what we wear; what we keep around the house; what color combinations make us feel good. And it also could be about extending that positive perspective on colors and color combinations to a host of other aspects of our lives. After all, it’s awfully easy to focus on the negatives. What’s not working? What didn’t I get done? How did someone else make a problem for me? But through her use of color, Angela Missoni is asking us to concentrate on the positives. What are the strengths of some of the people around you? What’s good and wonderful in your life? What qualities in yourself do you particularly appreciate and want to develop more? More, for Angela Missoni, it’s also all about creating synergy between colors and color patterns. What about you? How do you generate synergy in your own life, and what do you do to create an environment which makes it easier for everyone, including yourself, to flourish and to grow? These questions matter because we don’t always put them front and center and because a little time spent on developing the answers could lead to some pretty simple strategies to make things better. So, Angela Missoni is laying out a pretty wonderful color scheme; she’s emphasizing what works; and she’s actively focusing on developing those color combinations that really support each other and blend. How do these ideas resonate with you, and what are one or two actions you could take in the next day or so on that basis?
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Live Inspired!
Inspirational Color Quote of the Week: Colors Hot Pink, Orange, turquoise, Gray What Do You Notice? “There were hot pink things and turquoise things and bright orange. The only thing that mattered to us was the gray-scale value, and if you really walked through the set, it looked a little jarring.” -- Jan Pascale (set decorator) What do you think? Hot pink things. Bright orange things. turquoise things. Hmm, sounds pretty disorganized. A lot of jarring colors and a lot of just things! But what about you? You walk into a room? What do you notice? The colors? The layout? The people? And what stands out for you? What matters most? Lots of possibilities, and obviously what you notice/pay attention to might vary due to all kinds of factors, including the particular people and the nature of the situation. Is this a room in your own house? At the home of a friend? In a work place? At a store in a mall? So you might want to try out an experiment to actively ask yourself what you do pay attention to when you go into a situation. But here’s designer Jan Pascale walking on to a set. She’s noticing the colors of things, and she’s finding the contrast jarring. Think about it. It could have worked. After all, pink and orange come together to make a shade of coral, for which turquoise can be a pretty good match. But really, hot pink and bright orange. Sounds like in this particular case the colors could have been used more productively. But what’s all this about gray-scale value, and how does it fit in? As an award-winning set decorator, Pascale is providing the rest of us a great lesson in noticing. She’s paying attention to something pretty unique to her expertise, and it turns out that that expertise also provides some important learning for the rest of us. So consider. For the lay person, like me, I’m thinking she’s interested in the contrast between a number of reasonably bright colors with something that’s simply gray—quieter, mellower, more in the background. Amidst all the “noise” and brightness, here’s what’s grounding and what’s sturdy? You don’t have to be the loudest person on the set to count? Being who you are, however introverted or extroverted, is absolutely enough? I like that way of looking at the world. Well for Jan Pascale, it turns out that the idea of gray-scale value is a lot more concrete. It’s a technical term relevant for people interested in understanding photography and imaging. In a single measure, you’re tapping into the amount of black vs white (dark vs. light) in an image, completely removing color from the equation and leaving only the underlying patterns of contrast for your interpretation. In rendering each of the three colors on the set (pink, turquoise, orange) as levels of grey, you can come to think about the scene in a very different way. Do we have emotional responses to various colors? How does that change when those same colors are converted to levels of dark and light? A really interesting perspective. And a perspective that provides ideas that go well beyond color and can teach us quite a lot. What we at first pay attention to may leave out important parts of a story, pointing up the need to think about what’s most basic/important? Change your focus and different aspects of a situation come to light? It’s possible in the first place to give some more conscious thought to what you notice?? Different people sure do pay attention to different aspects of a situation, and they bring different perspectives to the same thing. So what do you yourself notice? While in some contexts, hot pink, turquoise and orange may be exactly the kinds of colors you choose to attend to and to put together, the gray and the gray-scale value certainly adds a lot to the story. How do these ideas resonate with you, and what are one or two actions you might want to take in the next day or so on that basis? Enthusiasm
“I fell off my pink cloud with a thud.”
Oops, and then what was that thud about that brought you back down to earth? What happened? What stopped working? What changed? Elizabeth Taylor’s quote raises intriguing questions about the activities we engage in and the things we tell ourselves to get us feeling good or bad. In and of itself, that’s worth knowing because the more we consciously shed light on what makes us happy or what brings us down, the more we can take control and the more we can learn to spend time up there in that place pretty close to the clouds. Perhaps even more importantly, the quote reminds us simply to feel. Whether it’s having fun on a pink cloud or thudding back to earth, let’s take advantage to get the most we can out of every experience. As a final note, after you’ve been brought down, how do you empower yourself to hop back up and quickly search out even more beautiful terrain? How do these ideas resonate with you, and in what one or two ways this week might you take a couple of actions to make sure you’re spending just a little more time on your own happy pink cloud? Live Inspired!!
Inspirational Color Quotes! Miracle “The sun rose brilliantly above, reflecting the hues of red, orange, lavender and blue in the pond before me. The viridian shadows changed to lemon yellow and lime green as the light washed the morning and I tried in vain to save a piece of this miracle on canvas.” --Mary Erickson (artist) What do you think? What a lot of wonderful colors? Red. Orange. Lavender. Blue. A variety of greens ranging all the way from viridian (a deep blue/green) to the much lighter lime. A happy lemon shade of yellow. They’re all here, the whole range of the spectrum and in various shades and hues. And what a dynamic description of the scene as the colors complement each other, contrast, shift and change. As an artist of the plein air (painting outdoors) school, Mary Erickson has stepped out to observe what in our minds becomes a marvelous view. She has provided us a characterization that draws you in, urging you to actively engage. While she focuses on color and what’s visual, it takes only a little stretch of the imagination to deepen the picture by adding in a place for our other senses. The increasing warmth as the sun rises. The song of a perhaps nearby bird or the taste of drops of water as she sticks her hand in the pond. If she’s done her job as an artist, the final version of the painting will certainly reflect the sensual nature of the scene. Maybe it takes the vision of an artist to observe so carefully to capture the intricate detail. And subsequently as Mary Erickson says to take that observation and to put the “miracle” down on canvas. But think about it; it’s not just about the skill of an accomplished painter. It’s made all the better because it’s so accessible to the rest of us. No particular cost; all in one place; all you need to do is hang out and observe. And while it might start with nature, there’s so many little things to notice which can so easily brighten our day. A song on the radio. An unexpected compliment. A favorite food for breakfast…. But think another minute. Back to Mary Erickson. All you need to do to find the miracle is to hang out and to observe? Do we take the time? Do we really notice? Do we look for the positive and the beautiful? Probably not as often as we might. So the really good part is that as an artist, Mary Erickson recalls for us the wonder of a particular scene; she also reminds us how easy it can be to find good stuff out there. A meaningful movie. A fun date. A day that actually went smoothly. The possibilities are enormous once you get in the right mindset. In addition to helping us appreciate a particularly evocative setting, we also learn from artist Mary Erickson that it’s easier than we think to get in that right mindset. How do these ideas resonate with you, and what are one or two actions you might want to take in the next day or so on that basis? |
AuthorI am a Life Coach, a Color Wisdom Card Practitioner, and yes, even a Professor (political science, State University of New York at Albany). I use the Color Wisdom Cards to support clients in exploring priorities and taking concrete actions to stay on track with the goals they set. Because in my own life I have overcome a lot of self-doubt, I want to work with people towards more confidence and self-empowerment. You can do it! What is it you want to do? Categories
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