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.