Reading 2: The Anthropology of Turquoise

Meloy, Ellen. “ The Deeds and Sufferings of Light.” The Anthropology of Turquoise: Reflections on desert, sea, stone, and sky. Vintage, 2003. 3-17. Print.

            What struck me most in this article was author’s unique sense of contemplative play with her work/observations. While embracing who she is, she is able to quite clearly articulate both her discoveries and her pure awe of the world around her.

            One way she does this is by using specificity in her use of color to “paint an image” and bring the reader to a specific place that she knows and loves. By connecting adjectives and nouns to colors, she provides tangible metaphors that the reader can understand. She states, “Colors bear the metaphors of entire cultures. They convey every sensation from lust to distress” (p. 7). By choosing her words very carefully, the reader is then challenged to understand her specific decisions of perception. I believe that specificity, coming from careful thought which then comes from care, is an important aspect to developing “craft” in the art world. It is through purposeful use of language and love that we learn to understand both our own work and the work of others. “It seems as if the right words can come only out of the perfect space of the place you love” (p. 15).

             She speaks of painting as “ an instinct of motion, a kind of knowing that is essentially indirect and sideways” (p. 6) and of a never-ceasing task that calls her to “climb to the juniper tree” once again. This struck me in regards to my own practice. Being a task-oriented person, my instinct in making is to plan out every decision before I have touched the clay and therefore, concentrating my work enough that my ideas/concepts read loud and clear. This does not work. Instead, it takes an amount of releasing my mind and allowing my hands to take over the process, allowing myself to watch as my hands and all their tactile knowledge make the decisions. This is where my “exciting moments” happen, my stylistic voice beginning as a whisper. The more I listen, as Meloy does, through my eyes, ears, and hands, the more I learn.

            Meloy also writes of the phenomena of interactions with color. She suggests that colors, being controlled by our perception of light, are more about physical experience than about understanding. She depicts them as emotional and cultural lenses, “intimate relations of an energy field” (p. 7), “fictive space”  (p. 11), and even stories. She sums it up by saying “Color is the first principle of Place” (p. 16). I believe that Meloy is suggesting that working to not just understand but to feel color brings you to a place that is unique to you through perception but is significant in experiencing the beauty of the world around us. We must open ourselves up to receive the unexplainable, indefinable, sensational world of color.

Molly Post

Reading 2

“The Anthropology of Turquoise”, Ellen Meloy, pp. 3-17

Ellen Meloy’s brilliantly written book, “The Anthropology of Turquoise” begins as an eloquently illustrated narrative, one of the reasons, I assume, it is ‘Los Angleles Times Best Book of the Year’.  A key quote reads, “You would think that these rich colors reside in the thing itself, that the cactus, the crayons the lichen have their colors.  But colors are not possessions; they are the intimate revelations of an energy field.”  Colors are reflections, as you know, the interesting part is how evolution plays a role.  Color vision is survival of the fittest, it is a developing sense, it is fun to imagine that it will continue to develop.
In my own creation process I can apply the reference to Ezra Pounds, a critic of the modernist movement, when Meloy claims his advice to artists is to make the world strange.  Although I could not find more information on his advice on Google I will continue to search.  Strange relates to emotive qualities that Meloy is also interested in exploring.  I imagine she fancies the work of Rothko, as the painter explores emotions evoked by colors rather than the interactions of colors.            
This excerpt contains a fresh view on color and is a wonderfully inspiring read.  From now on I understand the use of color is an important responsibility and thoughtful use can evoke emotions and involve stories.

Reading 2 Response

In Ellen Meloy’s article, The Anthropology of Turquoise I find it very interesting that she equates color to sensible reality and then to temperatures when she talks about the area that she hikes to on slick rock. She describes it as being touchable first and foremost over temperature, this seems to ring true with many colors from nature. It is often hard to describe a beautiful summer day or being atop a mountain after a fresh snow as anything other than a feeling. Color often invokes an emotion which could be the best and most honest way to express that particular color. When she transitions into talking about some of the emotions that certain colors evoke and quotes VassilyKandinsky it really helps give feet to her idea that colors contain emotions by giving the color a specific technique characteristic. This does however make me wonder if our background often shapes our opinion of a color because we somehow link parts of our past to certain colors. With music certain sounds are more pleasing to certain people based on the culture they were raised in, I wonder if there is a similar phenomenon with color. I really enjoy the next snippet of this article as she elaborates on the technical details of how the light gains information; it makes me think of all the interesting things that you could make by simply replicating complicated parts of organisms. It reminds me a lot of Bodyworld and how, even though you are surrounded by dead people and body parts, it feels like the strangest situation as you make your way through the exhibit. The exhibit then starts to take on a certain amount of beauty, and your thoughts of this being strange suddenly seem childish and immature. Why would it be strange to understand how you work? I can imagine a whole series of bowls made by chopping cross sections of organs and it could be very interesting, even you did not wish to eat off of them. Over all this is a phenomenally written article that gives a lot of interesting food for thought, and I think that it would make for a phenomenal short film. 

Reading Response 2-Megan Lightfoot

While reading "Feats Of Clay" By Peter Schjeldahl, many questions came about that I find pertinent to the assignment the class is focusing on. He speaks a lot about how Ken Price's work can bring about a sense of "pure pleasure" to certain viewers. His work seems to be all about color. The work is not coated in color in the way that many people view glaze on a ceramic piece. The works are created entirely around the concept of a color. For example, a sculpture that is intended to be blue in it's finished state, should read as "blue" even in it's plain and unglazed state. I think this is important for many of you to keep in mind as you come up with concepts for the color project. Some of the key questions that this article is trying to ask are:
    -what color would be considered "small" when expanded on as a ceramic form? And large?
    -which colors read as a heavy form, being weighed down by gravity? What color would grow upwards as a form, unaffected by gravity?
    -when viewing specific colors, what words come to mind that you could describe them with? And how do the colors make you feel?

When talking about color applied to Ken Price's work, Schjeldahl say's "it belongs to the work as matter-of-factly as eye color belongs to the eye's of somebody that you happen to be mad about." I like this in relation to the color project. The  pieces that you create should have the color that is applied seem matter-of-fact, in the same manner. (No possible way it could be any other color!)
   

Reading 2

“The Anthropology of Turquoise”, Ellen Meloy, pp. 3-17

   I remember this book from years ago.  I was in a book store.  The title and

colored picture of the tube of turquoise paint drew me in.  At one point, I

considered purchasing it.  After skimming through the chapters, I ended up

putting the book back because I was disappointed.

       Even though the book was up for a Pulitzer Prize, I felt it was a persistent

    rambling of facts and feelings, mixed with random memories of family,

    ancestry, personal events, and geography.  The book contained fluid

    descriptions using color as a reference, which was good.  However, Maloy’s

    writing style reminds me of a person with 6-12 months of life left, who has to

    soak in every second of every day, and remember vividly every moment of

    his or her past life, because it is slipping away.  I believe her thought process

    is too fast paced and frantic.  One thought blurs into the next without respite.

    She once stated that, “I thought I would never survive my imagination”.

    Even she was aware of that.  I know she is a naturalist and her intent was to

    be one of “exploitation of the connection between human perception and

    geography-landscape, and nature, spirit and art”, but it’s too much of an

    “intense study of details”.

       After skimming through the chapters, I ended up putting the book back

    because I was disappointed. 

 Side Note:  “The Anthology of Turquoise” was published in 2002.  In 2004

 Ellen Meloy died at home, in her sleep, of a possible heart attack or aneurysm. 

 She was 58.  

 

reading 2

I was really stirred after reading Ellen Meloy’s first chapter in “The Anthropology of Turquoise” and her ability to evoke emotion out of her surroundings and objects by intense description.  She speaks in this chapter of her previous experience of technical illustration, I think that this is one of the reasons Meloy is able to so accurately describe a scene; it seemed the smallest details did not go unnoticed. 

She described the evolution of the human eye, growing from light sensitive cells to complex eyes that are capable of hunting.  I thought it was interesting that she argued that someone can feel color and that seeing evolved from touch.  I agree with this, I feel there are certain colors that have emotional connections.  It was really fascinating reading about the order of introduction of words for colors in evolving languages and how some cultures lack a word for blue. I liked that she wrote that “we somehow make sense of another person’s references”, even though the descriptions or words for the colors may be different people across diverse cultures are able to connect on a visual level. 

 I think that one of the things that stood out most to me throughout Meloy’s chapter was her constantly referring back to the ridge of sandstone that she paints from.  It is obvious that there is something strongly emotional about this place for Meloy and  she was able to pull inspiration out of the same spot by looking at it in different lights and experimenting with different mediums to achieve effects.  It was not only through experimentation of mediums and different lights that Meloy pulled creativeness from but also through using the five fundamental senses of sight, touch, taste, hearing, and smell. She said  that without the threads that binds us to nature we numb ourselves to sensory intelligence, I think this speaks to not only seeing but observing.   I think that this was a beautifully written chapter with many ideas to be able to not just think of color as just that, but also as an emotional object that can tell a story without words.  

Reading 2: Chromophobia

David Batchelor, “Hanunoo” Chromophobia. London: Reaktion. 2000: 73-95.

In the chapter “Hanunoo” from Chromophobia, David Batchelor explains the relationship between color and language as well as color and color names. By referencing to the accounts on color made by linguists, philosophers, writers, architects and artists, Batchelor tries to emphasize the nature of color, keeping in mind to the chromophile story of the war between line and color in art history (77-78).

“verbal language is incapable of defining the experience of color…color refuses to conform to schematic and verbal system…color resistant to nomination, attaching itself absolutely to its own specificity…color precedes words and antedates civilization (81).”

He also introduces the language of Hanunoo (Mayayo-Polinesian Language) which has no words that correspond exactly with the English green, blue, grey or brown (88). In addition, Vietnamese and Korean make no clear distinction between green and blue, and Russian has no single word for blue. These languages show that color names are tied into cultural usage. Even "when Newton refracted white light through a glass prism and divided a colored spectrum into seven distinct colors, he made it correspond to the seven distinct notes in the musical scale of the period" (94). In that sense, the representations of rainbow (colors) including naming, describing and even painting are inconsistent by the culture prism. This idea was affirmed by Umberto Eco in his essay, “How Culture Conditions the Colors We see,” in which he argued that “the name of colors have no precise chromatic content; they must be viewed by within the general context of many interacting semiotic system.” (90)

            Given the fact that “the human brain can distinguish minute variation in color…(and) can recognize several million different colors” (87),  it is plausible to claim that color is “completely free of language, outside the system of conceptual thought" (76). Therefore, artists can be the one who resist being confined to the eleven general color names in common usage in contemporary English.

Reading 1

“Murray and Leach: A Study in Contrasts”, Shards: Garth Clark on Ceramic Art,

pp. 121-137

 

    This essay is about two ceramists in the 1920’s and 1930’s, who became rivals.  Their backgrounds, work, accomplishments, and place in the art world are compared.

    William Staite Murray was an English ceramist who was like a “secluded Buddhist monk who allowed those who cared about the future of ceramics to seek him out”.  He liked Asian ceramics,

and began working in clay at the age of 33, after studying drawing and painting earlier in his life.

He believed that ceramics belonged to the mainstream art world.  Murray felt throughout his life that ceramics should be at the same level as art.  He sold exclusively to collectors for steep prices and showed in the same galleries as painters and sculptors because he was more comfortable in their presence than with potters.  When he accepted a position to teach he didn’t give feedback to the students, and he didn’t cultivate an environment for emulating heirs to continue his work.  Despite

his more ambitious pieces, and closing the gap between art and craft, I believe that his arrogance, in addition to leaving the field of ceramics, are the reasons why he isn’t well known today.

     In contrast, Bernard Leach was an “evangelical force of a New World missionary hell- bent on converting the savages to his beliefs.”  He liked Asian ceramics, and began work in clay after studying etching.  He opened a pottery in 1920 called St. Ives and exhibited at shows.  Leach sold to collectors, but not at as high a price as Murray.  While doing so, he came out with a pamphlet titled, “A Potter’s Outlook”.  Here he “argued the case for the ethical, utilitarian pot over that of the “art”

pot”.  Leach emphasized the functionality of the pot. He was an effective teacher and writer who drew standing only crowds.

     This essay wasn’t intended to say one potter was better than another, rather it was meant to be a comparison of the two artists and their contributions.  However, in my opinion, I feel that through Bernard Leach’s creating, writing, teaching, demonstrating, informing, and lecturing, that he was a more balanced ceramic artist than Murray.  He was also dedicated to the ceramic community, and had a better business plan.  These are the reasons why I believe that Bernard Leach is known today as the “father of pottery”.

 

Side Note: This summer I came across a book published this year.  It is titled “Simon Leach’s Pottery Handbook”.  Simon Leach is Bernard Leach’s grandson, who has over 800 videos on You Tube.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

 

Reading 2

Ellen Meloy’s first chapter from The Anthropology of Turquoise eloquently sandwiches interesting, enriching theories of color between delicious slices of descriptive narrative. At one moment you are imagining the colorful word around her, easily envisioned due to our connection to her environment and unparalleled chromatic description, and before you know it, reading spot-on cultural and historical connections. The latter are what I thought most inspiring and memorable.

Kandinsky provides specific personal descriptions of colors.

“Orange is like a man, convinced of his own powers.”

“The power of profound meaning is blue, blue is concentric motion.”

“Red rings inwardly with a determined and powerful intensity. It glows in itself, naturedly, and does not distribute its vigor aimlessly.”

Another reference Johann Wolfgang von Goethe provides more food for thought.

“Colours are the deed and suffering of light.”

“The highest goal a man can achieve is amazement.”

To Goethe blue is “enchanting nothingness”

I particularly enjoyed The Island of the Colorblind section. Imagining an entire society without color is bizarre and makes me think back to The Giver. How would these people respond to their first glimmer of brilliant red?

How would I describe a general color in one or two short sentences? Could I imagine a world completely devoid of color? Are some of my greatest moments of amazement clearly associated with bold colors?

These are some of the questions I was asking myself while reading.

What do you think?

Reading 2 "The Art World Feats of Clay"

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/10/06/031006craw_artworld?currentPage=1

The Art World Feats of Clay: Ken Price’s Ceramic Art by Peter Schjeldahl

From this writing I have many ideas and thoughts. I will begin by quoting the author then comment on these quotes individually because I am unsure of a better way to respond to the many ideas this article has brought to mind other than one idea and then the next.

• “Like white light, which is the sum of all colors, such pleasure subsumes a spectrum of ideas, feelings, and sensations, which, if one is so inclined, can be sorted out through a prism of analysis.”

This metaphor brings so many beautiful images to my imagination as well as adeptly fits many of the concepts I have been struggling with; like a map in my head I wonder how it all -everything in life- fits together, but now I realize it fits together like the colors of a rainbow without the order all at once (white light). Could all of my ideas that I feel strongly about be a color? Could I simplify everything and simply make it a color? Dont we teach little kids that colors equal emotions? Isn’t that what we -as humans- try to do? Categorize everything into neat drawers of schemas?

Is this not what the art historians have done with Ceramics? Have they not put ceramics in a box named craftsy art that does not belong in a museum?

•  “To overeducated eyes, a perceived relation of an art object to conventions of domestic function is corny unless pointedly ironic."

What comes to mind is Meret Oppenheim’s Object. 

 

 http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=80997  So again we run into the issue of space for ceramics. Without the object being ironic, or a historical find it seems to have some difficulty finding its place in the art world, instead it finds its place in domestic settings merging and assimilating.

“Csikszentmihalyi (1990) has called the field of art-- the galleries and museums, and the people who guard and open their gates, including museum curators, gallery owners, and other artists. Together these gatekeepers decide whose work will be exhibited and immortalized. While social media and other cultural forces are breaking down the traditional mediums of control, access, and authority, gatekeepers still exert powerful influence on what the public and various specialized audiences consider to be great or worthy. Artists need to respond to the gatekeepers in one way or another along a continuum running from acquiescence to abject transgression, and student- artists need to come to understand those interactions.”- Studio Art II by Lois Hetland, Winner, Veenema and Sheridan 

To us as artists, just keep creating.

• “Something similar might be said about all of our joys in life, which recent brain research asks us to imagine as particular cocktails of hormones and neurotransmitters.”

This reminds me of a quote from one of my favorite books by Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions, “I tend to think of human beings as huge, rubbery test tubes, too, with chemical reactions seething inside.” Can I make this idea into a sculpture? 

• “But artistic pleasure differs from other kinds in being deliberately structured and thus encouraging to analysis, which is fun for the rational mind.”

Rational minds analyse information received from art. Art is enjoyable to different people for different reasons. For a child, it is evidence of existence, for the philosopher it is the ideas to and from the art that matter, for the teacher it is the growth of the student in developing an idea through features of art, for the average viewer it is the interaction between them and the object.This interaction is a rather selfish, greedy interaction… one of the reasons we create is to serve our viewer. We intentionally form our work with the selfish viewer in mind. Art is the giving of yourself (in time and effort) or the manifestations of the self or experiences or an inkling of an idea. Where viewing art is a selfish encounter. We come to feel what the artist is trying to convey, be it power or strength or happiness, we take it.  I never thought of it this way... 

• “Visual art sits still and lets us alternate looking and thinking, at our leisure.“

Observations lead to questions, questions lead to hypothesis and the imagination. Imagination leads to art, but it had to come from somewhere, thus we take from what we observe and experience, remix it and spit it back out. 
 

• “The objects that occasion these thoughts rest on standard pedestals and are spotlighted like jewels. ... They range in height from only three and a half inches to nearly two feet; the little ones occupy elegant cases made of wood and glass.” and “It adopts standoffish conventions of “art” display, notably pedestals. (Shelves, tables, and vitrines are customary for ceramics.)”

The description of the art and how it is displayed brings new ideas to mind, as to the displaying of work. Not only did price elevate the status of ceramics from being a household object, by placing his work on “standard pedestals.” He also chose to build boxes or cases for some of his work to be shown in, “and they forbid being picked up—some by being encased, others by promising back injury if you were to try. But their identity as intimate objects handmade in clay prevails, exerting a subliminal tug. They generate a feeling of private space—of home, even—around themselves.”
This disallows the viewer to have the old fashioned experience of holding/ physically handling a ceramic object.

• “Price’s belated prestige signifies something that is afoot in the culture of art these days: a shift of emphasis away from conceptualist modes that set ideas above experience and toward aesthetic practices that put experience first. A fine old slogan of the poet William Carlos Williams may be due another inning: ‘No ideas but in things.’”

This reminds me of inception. That if you blatantly tell someone an idea it can be rejected, but if the idea is subtle like from an art form the idea is more likely to take hold. How can art project an idea without directly stating an idea? For example if I wanted the viewer to acknowledge vegetarianism as reasonable option would I show images of dead animals or animals being slaughtered? or would I create a piece that provoked compassion for a live animal? 

Reading #2

I read The Anthropology of Turquoise by Ellen Meloy and I found it to be simply poetic. The way she vividly describes the color of the southwestern landscape is really kind of inspiring. Many artists spend a lot of time contemplating form and other elements of design, and many times color can be overlooked. Meloy takes a different approach by observing first each and every color she witnesses in great detail. For example she can observe how the ridge comprised of quartz crystals appears to be bleached during the day, however at night it transforms to various hues of blue. Or the canyons she expresses through crayons- they are not just rust colored; they are comprised of a plethora of reds, yellows, blues, purples, etc. As an artist, you have to be this observant; you have to throw out what you think you know, and what you think you see in order to concentrate on what there really is. I enjoyed the statement she made at the end detailing how all humans possess the "five fundamental maps to the natural world" alluding to the five senses. When creating a work, or at least creating an effective piece of work- the artist must attempt to create something that can actively engage those senses or "maps." Color allows a unique avenue to express some of these senses and can not go overlooked.

Reading 2

Bachelor, David, "Chromophobia", Reaktion Books 2000: Chapter 4: Hanunoo

  In the reading of Chromophobia  David bachelor jumps through how artist view color, like le courbusier believes color should be explosive and in your face. He alos goes on to say that as we grow older we loose the concept of how we view color. As we grow older we put color into boxes and catagorize them to understand them. One problem with that, is that once we arrange color we cannot change the written word of a color to the actual color. and later we makeup more words to explain the other colors. In Color Codes , by Charles A Riley he states that color refuses to conform to a schematic and verbal system. As languages differ from words, the name of a color may be diferent that the color that is percieved by a different culture.
   This reading is very interesting to be because I have a hard time aranging an actual color and the name of a color. What intrigued me was how David talked about how different cultures may have a more than one name for a color depending on its shade. Cultural norms in color differ from culture to culture. I liked how the author tied many aspects of color and how diferent artists with many diferent mediums interact with color in their own way. For example Painters ineract with color in a way that differs from Ceramicists because of the proces from a pigment to a final product.

Rafael

Reading 2

In Ellen Meloy’s first chapter of “The Anthropology of Turquoise” she gives a beautiful narrative of her journey and connections with color. She relates color to a deeply personal level all the way to a removed scientific analysis. Through reading Maloy’s descriptions, one feels the sense of a true understanding and connection of colors to every aspect of life. 

I was drawn to the aspects in her article that consider the cultural and humanistic aspects of color. When she talks about humans trying to define color it reminds me of the shared cultural beliefs that as humans we look for meaning behind everything. While  it is important to think about the metaphors colors bare to cultures, I think that she also is trying to say that the beauty of some things should not be defined. Instead, I think it is more important to really see and observe these colors that dominate our lives. She says, “Our lives, when we pay attention to light, compel us to empathy with color,” (8). We feel color, let it embody us, and relate it to our most personal traits to begin to understand it. 

In ceramics, especially functional pottery, I believe that this sense of personal and empathetic understanding of color is crucial. Functional objects already enter our domestic space on a much personal level than many other forms and becoming intimate in important ways. A plate or a cup is the next most connected thing to us, right after the food that enters our body. A cup literally kisses your lips and the color of it becomes as close as a trusted spouse. Color can either make or break this intimate experience. It is vital that when assessing colors for our objects, such as a cup, that we feel all of the emotional, historical, cultural, and scientific aspects of the color before painting it on such a personal form. 

Reading 2

The Anthropology of Turquoise by Ellen Meloy

I am not sure I have ever read or heard anyone talk about color the way this author did. her writing was bold and vivid in capturing the depth and intricacies in the emotive qualities and presence that colors have. I especially enjoyed this reading because I was already looking at using scenes from nature to inform my color pallet with glazing. I am interested in the finished piece as a composition and using color intentionally in the creation of each composition to capture bot subtleties and depth. This reading further sparked my interest in diving into this idea and beginning to better articulate it. One thing I really liked taking away from this reading is a feeling of excitement in our ability to be enthralled, in awe, captured by color. The author did an amazing job of speaking about how powerful and intertwined our perception and processing of what we experience can be. In my work I often find my self lost in the details, wanting to thoroughly address every aspect of each vessel. I am looking forward to the way I go about this intentionality being refined and growing in endurance. This reading really showed how significant color can be, which made be feel kind of empowered as an artist, to be gaining understanding of what I can convey through color choice, what I want to convey, knowing that we are all in a place to be applying this understanding now.  It may be cliche to say that artists see the world differently but I found it to be a pretty beautiful thing to read about the richness of the earth talked about in this way knowing we all have the ability to see and be beside ourselves before what captivates our hearts and eyes.

-Dehmie

Reading 2

Meloy, Ellen, "The Anthropology of Turquoise", Vintage Books 2003: Chapter 1 "The Deeds and Sufferings of light" pp. 3-17

In the first chapter of “The Anthropology of Turquoise” author Ellen Meloy paints for the reader an incredible picture of the physical landscape that surrounds her. Meloy not only conveys a beautiful image of the Colorado Plateau, but also describes the colors found in this landscape with incredible detail. She sees these amazing colors in the desert, feels them, assigns personalities to them, and finds a deep connection to them.

She says that “Each of us possesses five fundamental, enthralling maps to the natural world: sight, touch, taste, hearing, smell.” This is an important thing to remember, as colors can communicate more to the viewer than simply eye appeal, colors can have an impact on many different levels.

Although she does an impressive job of describing colors found only in a certain environment, in the passage she also almost doubts her own ability to do so, saying that “Colors challenge language to encompass them…it cannot, there are more sensations than words for them.” Even though she says this, I still feel that I have never read such a great and detailed account of the intricacies in colors found in their most raw form. From the very first sentences, I found that these colors and the way she speaks about them instantly brought me to that environment, I felt as though I knew exactly what she was describing, and even shared the same feelings toward those things.

 I think that I feel such a connection to these things because nature, as for Meloy, is such a major part of my life. Reading this passage about color and the different effects it can have on someone has made me think more deeply about what it is that I want the colors I use in my artwork to convey to the viewer. She recalls “…the Grand Canyon bathed in the Copper light of a summer sunset…” and how “…late winters sharpness still wraps the ridge in vibrant, clear air…” Both of these images resonate with me in a major way, and these are the kinds of descriptions that I hope to give to the colors that I want to use for my own work.