test pots and paint brushes

I spent Friday with the architect of a house we're working on. We spend lots of Fridays together, which is really delightful, actually. (Mostly because she's delightful and I admire her work very much.) This past Friday we were determined to nail down paint colors for each room in the house so we can get going on fabric and furniture. The colors are so soft and lovely--like they were pulled them from the spot where the earth and sky mingle. I spent Saturday begging paint stores to match swatches from a British paint company.* I was fairly successful. I'll spend today painting little canvases colors like Skylight, Calamine, Skimming Stone, and Vert de Terre. Kinda makes me want to sing a little Pocahontas. I'm not gonna lie.

*They sell the pain in the U.S., just not in Utah.

Yellow Paper, Secret Notes and Magic Candles

Last night, at a triple birthday party (which ended up being double the triple) I got the only cupcake with a trick candle. I managed three wishes before someone snuffed my magic flame.

This morning we drove downtown early early. We could see all the way to Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake. The clouds were painted shades of sherbet: rosy pinks, vibrant oranges and light violets against a sea-blue sky.

This afternoon I was sent on an early birthday scavenger hunt which lead me to Special Collections at the U of U Library. I had an hour with a rare book all to myself.* Full of hand-painted color wheels and hand-set letterpress about thoughts and theories on color, I was in heaven. I took copious notes on yellow paper provided by the library and tried not to get pencil lead on the pages. I flipped them forward, then backward and I read the introduction three times. I liked this part:

The study of color is integral to that part of art so often ignored: the art of the artists' materials.

Tonight I came home to two dozen roses the color of a sunset in a vase with eucalyptus leaves, (one of my favorite smells) and a book I know I'll refer to again and again. We read aloud the part at the beginning written by E.B. White, deemed by one worthy of doing such deeming, "the greatest essayist America ever hatched." His words made us laugh. Plus, the 10 o'clock news announced a blizzard of epic proportions blowing this way. I heart snow oh so much. (In celebration of Saturday's storm, we downed our first ho cho of the season.) All of this...

...and my birthday isn't even until tomorrow.

*Thank you to the scavenger hunt schemer. Thank you for my secret note. And the drawing of the big dipper.

on being thankful

I couldn't get over this yesterday--the way the shades fade
into one another like colors on a color wheel.
{Photo of 1920*}

-To N for coming to town for wedding festivities and for helping me hoist chairs into the car in skirts and heels. Please move here already.
-To EAFT for the video. Thank you a million times a million. (Plus infinity.)
-To the men we watched jousting at the park yesterday. We want you to be the subjects of a sociological study.
...And, to the man with the red arrows. You are our favorite forever.
-To PP who came ever so subtly dressed as Dracula to church last Sunday.
-To the Beehives. And all the YW.
-To Mr. L for the text messages.
-To George Washington Carver for inventing the peanut, and subsequently other things peanut-related. Like peanut butter.
-To the honey bees for making honey to go with peanut butter.
-To mom for making comfy quilts to snuggle up with.
-To Andrew for chatting with me about architecture school over tomato soup.
-To Elder Chard for kind emails from SeaTown.
-To autumn for being so jaw-droppingly gorgeous this weekend.

*Dear 1920,
I knocked on the door to ask permission, but no one came, so I started snapping.

climbing colors

Many of the houses in my parent's neighborhood are covered in ivy. This time of year it turns brilliant shades of red and orange. There's a bright patch along the back fence in my parent's yard. It was begging for a portrait yesterday.

pray for purple

Robert Frost said, "The best way out is always through."
* * *
One year for our birthdays, my sister and I got matching bikes. I remember choosing them together. I saw the purple bike with the banana seat and began to plead with my little kindergarten heart that my sister (the biggest tom boy in the neighborhood) would love the pink one. I prayed for the color purple. A birthday gift from the color gods, my purple prayer was answered, a purple predicament solved. My childhood bike rides were on a purple banana seat bike, my tough-as-nails sister by my side on her identical pink one.
* * *
Today I hate the color purple*. I hated it more and more as the minutes went by. I have a client who won't budge. It's purple and only purple. There's no way around this giant purple people eater of a room and so I'm left with only one choice: wade knee deep in thick, messy, purple. California Raisin. Grape Soda. Plum. Dimetapp. (Except Dimetapp makes things better. I don't see how this can get better.) Mulberry. No matter what you call it, a purple by any other name remains, well, purple.

In a dark and dreary mood, I thumbed through racks and racks of fabric samples today. At the end of the purple brick road, there definitely wasn't an Emerald City. Oh, how nice it would be to ignore my client. To pay no attention to that proverbial man behind the (purple) curtain. When I reached the end of the all the purple, there was empty space. I wish I could say that my purple plight has come to an end, but all I have are sample bags full of purple gook. A goulash. Like ink from a leaky pen, my hands are stained purple.

Please, oh please pray for purple.

*Not the movie, just to clarify.

happy weekend

It started snowing a few minutes ago. But, these colors are enough to drown out the dreary.
{image via flickr}

black and white

There is a scene in Sabrina where Julia Ormond is on-site at a photo shoot right in front of the Eiffel Tower. It's raining, and the two models are busy turning their heads this way and that, staring dramatically back at the camera. Sabrina (Ormond) walks into the frame. She loosens her grip on a red scarf, letting it trickle down from her finger tips until it gathers like a pool on the plaza. The scarf stays in the shot, the only color to the backdrop in the actual movie and in the photo shoot, on a dreary Paris day.

This morning I met with S to talk about paint colors. They've been living in this gorgeous house for almost a year. I was dying to go inside the minute I noticed the house from the main road. The woodwork is to die for, the floor plan divine and the master suite?! Let's just say I wish they'd sublet. I'd make myself at home in the half bath just off the kitchen. One of the first things she said to me when I walked in was, "So. Much. White." She's right. The previous owner (and builder) painted the walls a boney white, which is not a far cry from the color of the woodwork throughout the rest of the house. We stood in the space for a long while, both splashing ideas across the white canvas. As time went by, my eyes grew weary.

In design school they cautioned us to not go overboard with either color or pattern; that in all the busyness, the eye needs somewhere to rest. It was interesting though, that today, in the absence of color, my eyes were probing for any semblance of pigment: S's red purse on the black counter top. Her daughter's orange shoes in the hallway. A little boy's green jacket on a hook in the mudroom. (I'm not saying this family lives in a colorless world. That day in and day out they go around dressed in all-white, reenacting the scene from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when Mike TV shrinks the size of a Wonka Bar. They've got colorful clothes, colorful bedspreads, etc. The bare bones of the house, however, are literally without color and that's what we're working on. That's where the fun begins).

Just off the dining room, opposite two columns, hangs a large oil painting. As we stood between the living room and dining room, each utilizing a pillar as a headrest, we caught up on things other than color and design. As we chatted in the white hallway, my eyes drifted in all the unbusyness. I needed color. Saturation. Tone. I found myself breaking eye-contact to look at the painting which helped me keep my color composure. I left with lots of ideas and S is on the hunt for more than enough paint chips for our house-sized canvas.

When N and I discuss kitchens, we always advise white. White cabinetry. White trim. White marble. It's fresh. It's crisp. It's timeless. And, I suppose it's because white is color's playground. Pattern, texture, and hue can inch furtively up to it and burst out bold and white's no worse for the wear. The future of the P's house looks bright. My paint decks are fanned and the sky's the limit!

apples

There is a painting at a local gallery that I dream about. It's of apples on a branch against a blue sky. I've never seen colors like that. Red fades to pink which melts into white which turns into yellow, all against the backdrop of the bluest day any orchard has ever seen. I'd plan a whole room around those colors. Every so often I drop by to see if it has sold. The gallery owner rotates its spot, making space for new paintings by shuffling the old. A few days ago I stopped in. The apples had moved up high on the wall, like the ceiling is the tip top of the tree and the painting is hanging from one of the branches. Maybe no one will notice it there. Maybe I'll win the lottery. Maybe one day I'll walk through those doors and say I'd like to purchase that painting, please. The owner will know exactly which one I mean. The one you come to visit? You mean, you actually want to take it home? Yes, I'll say. He'll wrap the apples in brown paper, covering the colors for a short time, until, like the skin of an apple, I can peel off the paper and hang it on my wall.

Right on Hue

Someone once told me that there is no such thing as color memory. Semester after semester of color theory classes, and my fair share of time with a paint deck lead me to believe otherwise. Once I bet a co-worker I could name the existing paint on the wall at a client's house. We went back the next day. I won. The chip matched, dead on. Just as a scent or song cue the brain to scan memory files and finger through favorite experiences, so color does for me. Every time I hear Yellow by Coldplay, I think of this. I'm pretty sure that memory is there to stay.

It's popping up all over. I've read it on fashion blogs and in newspaper articles. Yellow is the color of 2009. Pantone says so and so it goes. I bought a yellow sweater many months ago without the slightest clue I was in the fashion-know. I donned my yellow sweater at church a few weeks ago. The sunshiney hue made me happy. It makes me think of Aunt B. Of her yellow trellis wallpaper in the kitchen nook, and her yellow gardening clogs just inside the back door. Of yellow Heller plates. Yellow crocuses in Grandpa's garden next to the red brick driveway. I think of the painting of the corn which hangs in Grandma and Grandpa's house, an homage to their years in Iowa. The yellow dress in A Young Girl Reading by Fragonard. Van Gogh's yellow in Bedroom in Arles. I love Van Gogh yellow: Yellow sunflowers. Yellow wheat fields. Yellow swirling stars. Coldplay yellow is different, but noteworthy nonetheless.

color of the day

If today were a color, it would be gray. A cheerless, murky gray, trapping the city in dreariness; in a cold lull, waiting for a storm to blow fresh life into this space we call our town. Gray like my laptop, which has occupied my lap for quite some time today. Gray like the feeling I got when I walked inside the nearly-empty YBH to retrieve a few belongings. Gray like thoughts, spoken to no one, floating clouds in my head, thick and ready to burst.

If tonight were a color it would be gray like granite found atop all that's dreary; a gold angel beckoning to come in from the sad world, into somewhere brighter. Enduring. Everlasting. Gray like the shadows cast upon my new book from L, pages waiting to be turned. Gray growing towards white as the night turns on, a new canvas, in preparation for the new day.

still life

I rotate the pear one quarter turn to the right, its blushing belly exposed to the pomegranate directly adjacent to it. The blazing fruit of passion sits unabashedly aside its paler, more timid counterpart, turned a quarter counter-clockwise in the tall glass vase atop the table. No one notices, but that quarter turn makes all the difference because now, not only does the pear-yellow harmonize with the red of the pomegranate, but the pear's rosy belly now blurs the fruit's colors together creating a yellow to orange to red gradient; both a study in color and one in line and shape and texture. I take another pear out of the bag and place it in the vase of pomegranates, flush-side up.

Mr. Ed's color theory class

Amidst the saw dusty mess of an old wood floor (soon-to-be gorgeous), I tried to describe the stain I wish to be the end result. I fanned out the options and showed the floor-finisher-stainer dude (that's his real title). Truth be told, I wasn't thrilled with any of the choices. "It's between this and this," I said, pointing to two samples. He didn't follow. Picking several others, I said, "Like if you took this, and mixed it with this, you'd get something right about here." A blank stare. Hmm. I was at a loss and he was just plain lost. We dialed N in CA. We went back and forth saying, "It's like this. It's like that. It's like this and that." We were getting nowhere and I had just gotten a sliver from fanning out all the different options. After a brief period of well-now-what's? and why-did-the-airport-steal-my-Leatherman-with-the-tweezers-in-it? moments, N said, "OK, so I'm looking at a horse right now that is just the most perfect color." I wish we could have borrowed him and had the dude/guy take him to the paint store to do a color match. Alas, we're back to combining several different shades to hopefully get something "right about (t)here." I'll be interested to see what he comes up with. If all else fails, we'll buy a trailer and start pony rides in the neighborhood to cover our costs. All in favor say ,"I." Any opposed, say "Neigh."

the stacks

A few weeks ago, I walked into an antique store. Towards the back, on a dusty shelf, sat a tall stack of plastic plates in every shade I could think of. They caught my eye from the window as I walked from the parking lot. There was something familiar about them; their size and shape.

Downstairs in Dad's workroom is an old kitchen bowl, covered in paint. There are so many layers, it's nearly impossible to tell the original color of the bowl. It smells and feels of paint and leaves a bit of paint on your hands if you touch the inside.

* * *

In the red brick house, in a small dining area off of the kitchen, beneath the quilt with the big red diamond, we used to eat dinner on plates of primary hue. I liked the sound that the silverware made against them and how they felt against my hands when they came out of the dishwasher, the heat slowly escaping from the center as I stacked them neatly in the cupboard. I liked to stack them in order: red, yellow, blue, a color theory lesson on the kitchen shelf. Sometimes, if someone else had unloaded the dishwasher, and no one was looking, I would rearrange them, unstacking two blues or two yellows. Over the years we dropped a plate or two. The reds seemed to disappear the fastest. Maybe because they were our favorite; the one's we used the most. Slowly, the stack went from red, yellow, and blue, to just yellow and blue. I felt OK about it, though; like it was some sort of homage to our Swedish heritage. Once, a babysitter put a blue plate in the toaster oven to cook some hamburger. The smoke alarm went off and the plate came out with a big black hole in the center. We had to throw that one out. The hamburger went with it.

Aunt Judy gave Mom a set of cherry-bordered plates one year for her birthday. They soon occupied the place on the shelf where our beloved primary-colored plates once sat, stacked. When my sister left for college, Mom pulled down a small stack of plates and bowls for her to take. Now, years later, she and her husband eat soup and cereal in blue and yellow bowls.

* * *
I took a red plate off the shelf and turned it over, looking for the brand name on the back. My fingers traced over the "H." The store owner approached me. "Those are collector's items, you know." I nodded my head, finger moving from "H" to "E." I told him about the red brick house. About the babysitter, the hamburger and my sister who still has a few bowls -- blue and yellow. He pulled a green bowl off the shelf. I'd never seen one in green. It was nestled between a pink bowl and a red one. He left me to browse, both bowls and memories. I separated out all the red, yellow and blue plates and bowls. I left them stacked separately from the others, a lesson in color theory on the shelves of an antique store, just a few miles from the red brick house.

put your red foot forward

There are Red Shoe Days and then there are Red Shoe Days. The first being, days upon which red shoes cover pink toenails in hopes they'll bring luck to the day. The second being, days upon which red shoes call out from the closet, a silent alarm clock of sorts, which cannot be ignored. They match your morning mood of determination for yet another round of here-we-go-again. As your pink-painted feet hit the carpet you can feel it; Red shoes forecast the paths of a propitious day. Today was a Red Shoe Day.

I awoke with one of M's songs in my head. As my feet hit the floor, my red shoes sang back. Today, it was my patent pair, with the button at the toe. Perfect, I thought as I slid them out of their shoe slot and onto the floor until I was ready to step out for the day. Today was going to be a good day.

I proudly put the pedal-to-the-metal this morning on my way to an appointment, arriving ten minutes early. This never happens. I sat down with my book and crossed one knee over the other, patent shoes swinging in the periphery.

Two red shoes arrived at Trio, where the Trio becomes a deuce, as Nat and I catch up over lunch. Today we went out on a limb and tried the bread pudding, not sure if it would satisfy our salivating. It was, in short, amazing. Amidst walnuts, and red shoes, we chatted about what we always chat about (Nat, today you had some brilliant lines. Which, honestly, is nothing new).

Tile pattern selected and painter scheduled, red shoes skipped back to the car in parking lot at the slab yard. Errands are much more fun with red shoes. Trust me. Along my rouge-route, word came from E. Buone notizie! The best news yet. At the red light, rosso shoes were right in sync, tapping to the beat. And, tonight at the movies, red shoes went effortlessly up and over the seat in front of me, satisfied with the view from the top and happy to be part of a Martha Milestone.

Every girl needs a pair of red shoes.

The Walking Man Walks

The other day I was out color-hunting with a client. To color hunt all one needs is a good partner, a good paint deck and a good neighborhood. We had all three. Plus K (less like a client, more like a dear friend. We get off-topic all the time. It's so much fun) has great taste and she's brazen. She's got the gumption I lack. She'll step out of the car to ask a stranger just how they made their arbor or what, exactly, is that color on their house trim. The results have been pleasing. We've met the kindest of people. I love hearing House Histories. Every house has one and when you find an owner who belongs to their house, rather than the other way around, you'll find that they will tell you the most interesting of stories.

This post, however, has nothing to do with houses. Except that it was while color hunting that I met Peter.* K put on the breaks, tires rolling to a stop; the rolling window stopping simultaneously. She leaned over my seat and said...something to this 40-something man (obviously her acquaintance) as he approached the car. The first word that popped into my head: blue. And we're not talking trim colors here. This man had reflecting pools for eyes. So blue they command attention. And you better believe I stood at attention. Sat, actually. Straight up. I took one look into those eyes then couldn't look at them for fear I'd be drawn right in. I fanned out my paint deck, mindlessly flipping to the blues. A possible subconscious attempt to match the hue of Peter's eyes; to make a color memory. They weren't any one color, but every color, breaking all Laws of Chromatics. Scattering. Reflecting. Absorbing. They were inches from me. I couldn't take it!

His voice: melty. His jawline: divine. Then, then there was his hair. Those dark locks, lightly frosted with a few graying strands. The perfect length. The perfect thickness. The perfect texture. (Not that I touched it. But, oh! How touchable it seemed!) At this point, I'm hoping anyone in the audience knows me well enough to know that a) this man really was attractive but/and b) that I love dramatizing every little small detail (Linds, that's a lyrical quiz slash Test of Friendship, if you will). Back to the Walking Man. So he and K are talking and all I'm hearing is "blah, blah, blah" and thinking that this man has got to have some sort of Italian in him. That Roman nose. I couldn't stop fantasizing about those azure pools with depths unknown. I was just about ready to dawn an oxygen tank and dive in when, all conversation stopped. I felt those placid blue eyes shift their gaze and land on me. It was...uncomfortable in the most wonderful sense. His eyes drew my face up and before I knew it, blue locked with brown as Gavin looked at me. He said, "I'm sorry (touching my arm and pausing) I was talking, then all of a sudden I looked at you and I thought, 'Wow, she is beautiful!' You are beautiful!" Come again? (I didn't say that to him, but I was thinking it). I said a very bashful "thank you," and out fanned the paint deck again. This time, I was mindlessly manning the red zone, trying to match the pink shade of my cheeks. Pink indeed! I felt them flush in mere milliseconds. As I was dopely doing so, I shrugged my shoulders and thought, "Well, I'm good. Good for life. Drive on, K. Drive on!" Honestly I am. Good for life, I mean. A compliment like that from a man like that? That, my friends, is something I can go off of forever. When I rejoined the scene, Peter and K were back to their gabbing. Something about children on the playground not getting along. Grown-up stuff...trailing...trailing...

A few moments later, K was summing-up salutations, and we were off. I managed a "Nice to meet you." His reply, "Really. You're gorgeous." I think I melted right into the seat as we drove away. "Okay, so he's like McDreamy with an under-bite!" came the comment from K's seat. I was still off in Lah-Lah Land, but agreed emphatically. I was so undone by his eyes and hair, I didn't even get to his teeth.

And, just like that, K's my favorite client and I'll go color hunting with her any day!


*This is not his real name. His name has been changed to protect his attractiveness. Or something. I asked M what a good-looking man in his early 40's would be named and she said "Peter," so Peter it is.