Tuesday, November 3, 2009


















"He had that curious love of green, which in individuals is always the sign of a subtle artistic temperament, and in nations is said to denote a laxity, if not a decadence of morals"
The other night I got to hang out with some of the fabulous and fierce woman of as220's print and design shops. Julia can make me laugh my butt off. She has a way of turning a conversation around? sideways? She threw out the question "Did the film Uncle Buck glorify suburban life and the nuclear family?" Got a hmmm... wha? response. But what followed- "How do we encapsulate this past decade?" Now this was at the very tail end of my Day of the Dead party, and the as220 chick click showed up fashionably late, but we were able to toss it around a bit. Of course it got me thinking about. Color. Some of you may be familiar with my color/politics theory. It's basically this- every wave of political atmosphere can be represented by a hue that explains it all and was frequently used in that decade. A few samples to consider- Turn of the Century- Queen Victoria's mourning kept everyone in check with corsets (Black) but a little ocd had to come out somewhere (Those crazy acid pastels) The 50's- Happy happy happy everything and we are happy (Red) The 60's- Play play play so hard with all of the new chemicals we find in nature and labs (psychedelic rainbow) The 80's- We are rich and little kings and queens that rule the world but not really (The soulless mauve of the Reagans, the fauve color) and then this last decade. Not sure I have a handle on it but I think it might be the color of fear (that baby poop yellow with black in it) All of this has to take in to consideration the scientific and industrial discoveries that got textiles, paint and plastic covering new ground. But I like to think about color being equal to emotion. And maybe that's why I'm heading toward this next decade with as much sun reflecting white I can put in my world. I may miss the baby poop a tiny bit. But then sometimes fear can motivate us to better things.