A Little Color

It could be said that I'm addicted to color, and I would freely admit it.  I don't know about where you live, but here, it's been, as George would say, (little darlin') "a long, cold lonely winter".  I'm ready for Spring, I'm tired of gray and brown, so I say here comes the color!

Marketing researchers have spent considerable amounts of money trying to figure out the psychological effects of colors.  Of course, it's not an exact science, because each person has his/her own unique associations with colors, resulting from personal experience.  But there are some associations that tend to hold true for most people.  See if you agree.


WHITE

• purity
• innocence
• cleanliness
• sense of space
• neutrality
• mourning (in some cultures/societies)

GRAY

• neutral
• timeless
• practical

 BLACK

• authority
• power
• strength
• evil
• intelligence
• thinning / slimming
• death or mourning

RED

• love
• romance
• gentle
• warmth
• comfort
• energy
• excitement
• intensity
• life
• blood

ORANGE

• happy
• energetic
• excitement
• enthusiasm
• warmth
• wealth prosperity
• sophistication
• change
• stimulation

YELLOW

• happiness
• laughter
• cheery
• warmth
• optimism
• hunger
• intensity
• frustration
• anger
• attention-getting

GREEN

• natural
• cool
• growth
• money
• health
• envy
• tranquility
• harmony
• calmness
• fertility

BLUE

• calmness
• serenity
• cold
• uncaring
• wisdom
• loyalty
• truth
• focused
• un-appetizing

PURPLE

• royalty
• wealth
• sophistication
• wisdom
• exotic
• spiritual
• prosperity
• respect
• mystery

PINK

• romance
• love
• gentle
• calming
• agitation

BROWN

• reliability
• stability
• friendship
• sadness
• warmth
• comfort
• security
• natural
• organic
• mourning (in some cultures/societies)

Some of the associations seem a little odd, but for the most part, they make sense to me.  I got the color association information from a cool art therapy website; you can read more about it here.

Now that we've considered each color separately, lets mix them all together, shall we? 

These incredible large-scale installations by Mexican fiber artist Gabriel Dawe certainly encompass the entire color spectrum. 

Plexus 3 by Gabriel Dawe

Plexus 3

Plexus 2 by Gabriel Dawe

Plexus 4 by Gabriel Dawe

To see more of Gabriel's work, visit his website, here.

And now, for the final color overdose; check out this video of artist Holton Rower at work!  (Turn up the sound, too; the music is great.)

I find this video mesmerizing!  Okay, maybe I am easily amused, but I hope you enjoy it as well.  I also hope you enjoyed my little color tour!  Thanks to my son, Colin Reusch, for sending me the links to these two artists.

Cardinal Flowers, Alizarin Crimson, and Donovan

Here are a few wildflower photos I took last weekend out at our place on the Kinneyconnick. I guess you can tell the cardinal flower is my favorite- probably because it's the only wildflower I've seen in this area that's really red. This flower is REALLY red, no photoshop enhancements necessary. (Alizarin crimson, perhaps?) As evidenced by my artwork, I love intense, saturated color; I believe it's one of the sublime ecstasies of life!

Mist Flower (Eupatorium coelestinum)

Meadow Phlox (Phlox maculata) or Fall Phlox (Phlox paniculata)

Four views of the showy Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis):


Alizarin- a red dye originally obtained from the root of the common madder plant, Rubia tinctorum, in which it occurs combined with the sugars xylose and glucose. The cultivation of madder and the use of its ground root for dyeing by the complicated Turkey red process were known in ancient India, Persia, and Egypt; the use spread to Asia Minor about the 10th century and was introduced into Europe in the 13th.




As Donovan says, wear your love like heaven!

The Traveller

Here is the finished version. I darkened parts of the background to hopefully lead the eye back toward the figure, and balance the visual "weight" of the birds. (Thanks, Michael!) What do you think?

Aurora

The extra-cold weather we've been having this winter got me thinking about those far northern places where it's almost always cold. In some of those places, people endure not only the mind-numbing cold, but somehow withstand extended periods of darkness as well. I cannot imagine how they survive such conditions; I whine and complain if the mercury dips below the freezing mark, and hate it when it's already dark at 6:00 p.m. I tried to picture what it would be like, to live in a place so dark and colorless. And I thought about the aurora borealis, which plays an important part in the "His Dark Materials" trilogy by Philip Pullman. Most of the story takes place in the far north; just reading it made me feel cold. I've always wondered what the aurora really looks like, and if seeing it could in some way compensate for the cold there. So here is my imaginary aurora borealis, to distract me from the cold. You may notice, however, that I couldn't stop myself from including some "ice flowers" in the foreground.

Transformation 32

This is the latest in the Transformation series. The formation of the universe, the slow bonding of one element to another, the making of stars and planets over billions of years- these things are endlessly mysterious and fascinating to me.

Abstracts

I've had a lot of fun lately (and frustration, too, I must admit), trying to expand my Photoshop abilities beyond just re-sizing things. I'm kind of in a 'stuck' place with my art, so I began to play around with some of my photos. I guess there's less pressure with them, because I've never really considered myself a serious photographer, or exhibited my photos as "ART" (whatever that means). Anyway to get to the point, I was thinking of photos as abstracts. I know many people use the terms "abstract" and "nonrepresentational" interchangeably, but when I was in school, I was taught that abstraction was making images that had a basis in reality. For example, Picasso's figures may have two eyes on one side of their faces, but you know they're based on people. In contrast, the work of Mark Rothko or Jackson Pollack would be considered nonrepresentational because they don't reference anything in the real world. Of course, all of this is arguable and pretty vague; they may have based their work on something real at times.
But now I'm rambling. What I've tried to do, essentially, is take real things as recorded by the camera and see how far I could push them into abstraction by altering them with Photoshop. None of these photos are cropped, by the way. Let me know what you think. Can you tell what they are?

more multiples (the edge of november)

Cloud Sunflower

It's a cold, gloomy,
gray, drizzly day
on the edge
of November
and even worse
it's Sunday
So I have to go
to work
tomorrow.


Metal Sunflower

Summer's heat and
soft, buttery,
yellow light
are gone
and the sky is hard,
the color of
lead.


Ink Sunflower

Last summer is far
away and long ago,
a faint
remembrance
like the taste of salt
on my tongue
or glittering on
my skin.


Glowing Sunflower

But I can wait
and remember
and think
of yellow things
like
sunflowers.

Pink Blacklight Buddha

Is it just me, or does this kind of remind you of a seventies blacklight poster? Of course, those memories are a bit fuzzy, so I could be wrong. Let me know what you think.

Psychedelic Buddha

Gateway

Another new piece- I hope you enjoy it.
Size: 12"x14"
Medium: monotype collage
Price: $295.00

Illuminated Portal

I thought I'd share some of my recent artwork. I haven't made any more of the smaller pieces lately, but hope to get back to it soon. Enjoy!

Size: 8.5" x 17"
Medium: monotype collage
Price: $289.00 (no mat or frame)

Slideshow: Angels and Spirits

My daughter made this slideshow for me of some of my pieces which have related themes or images. My son added the music, and- VOILA! Hey, don't laugh; I uploaded it all by myself! Thanks, Caitlin and Colin; you are awesome.

Transformation 28

Just wanted to post this quickly before going out of town for a few days. Happy Spring!

Strange Weather

This piece is not part of either the Seed Mandala Series or the Transformations Series. It was inspired by the strange weather we've had lately (go figure) across the whole country, both literally and figuratively.

Seed Mandala 31 (Moth-man Death-Star)

Sometimes I make up funny names for these, based on what they remind me of. For instance, there are a couple that look like uteruses (uteri?), and others that bring to mind native American designs, galaxies, butterflies, or whatever. There was no intention to make them that way; I let chance or spirit or flow have a part in making these. Like seeing shapes in the clouds, people see completely different things in them - often something to meditate on. well, you might not want to meditate on Moth-man death-star...

Seed Mandala 30 (Dancing Earth Goddess)

I haven't posted much on here lately because I wasn't feeling well. So, to sort of make up for the gap I'm posting two paintings today. This one has been through many transformations and permutations, and finally ended up a dancing Earth goddess. Believe it or not, most of these mandala pieces end up in the garbage. Abstract art is a lot harder than I ever thought it would be. Blessed be!

Transformation 24

All of the matter and energy in the entire universe was once contained in "a space so small that it would make a proton look enormous." (Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything) This, according to many scientists, was the situation before the Big Bang. Some experts think there may have been untold numbers of universes before this one, constantly expanding and then contracting back to that tiny point of matter. That we exist in this one is, they say, simply a matter of chance. "Although the creation of a universe might be very unlikely, Tryon (of Columbia University) emphasized that no one had counted the failed attempts." What were the other universes like, I wonder?

Transformation 27

I have no idea what else to say about these. What do people want to know? Does anyone really read these? I'm sure no one wants to know about my dull life; I have no stories to tell, unless I make some up. So instead, I'll quote Carl Sagan: "Not all of our ancestors made the same sharp distinction we do between Earth and sky. The grandparents of the Olympian gods were...Uranus, god of the sky, and Gaia, goddess of the Earth. ancient Mesopotamians had the same idea. The chief gods of the Konyak Nagas of India today are called Gawang, "Earth-Sky", and Zangban, "Sky-Earth". That's where we live. That's where we come from. The sky and the Earth are one."

Transformation 26

Last day of February! It's been a very hard month of darkness, both literally and otherwise. Finally, the days are getting noticeably longer. Here's a little winter-spirit to carry us into spring; as she transforms dark into light, we will change with her...