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
It totally is exciting that we, as artists, have the ability to convey an idea through color choice! In painting we talk a lot about the power of this choice when painting skin tones; as a painter you have the power to disregard the natural skin tone of your subject, and paint it slightly bluer than you see it, or a little pinker. It is amazing how differently a figure is seen when the tone of the painting is cooler, or warmer. On one hand this does give the artist a huge amount of power... but I also tend to think that whatever experiences the viewer has relating to a certain color will inform their perception of that painting or ceramic piece. It may not matter if the artist intends for the blue they used to read as calming and sad if the viewer brings their own historical and cultural associations with them. The viewer may see something completely different in a color than the artist.
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