Seeing Color

I was recently given a great little book The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St. Clair. As a “creative expressionist” I LOVE color. And this little book has taught me so much about how our eyes see color, or rather don’t see color. As many of you, I was taught the spectrum of color—Roy G Biv—the wavelengths of colors in the rainbow, from the R-red to V-violet, in middle school science class. Yet, “the color we perceive an object to be is precisely the color it isn’t,” according to St. Clair. Let me explain.

Objects appear to be a color because they do not absorb the wavelengths of that color. A red tomato is actually every color, except red. The red tomato absorbs the blue-green-yellow wavelengths of light, and the red wavelength is rejected and reflected into our eyes, which the brain interprets as red. And every eye sees a different red! Because the human eye is so sensitive there are millions of interpretations of the same color. Individuals can look at the same object and interpret its color differently…some may see a bright red, others dark red, purple hues, or maybe a tent of grey. Thus, a color may be pleasant and beautiful to me, yet offensive and ugly to you.

As an artist I experiment a lot with color. I love mixing and blending my own paints to make my creations unique. However, unlike the colors of a rainbow that come together to form white—the light of day—mixed paints eventually make black. This is because the pigment of paint rejects and reflects a portion of light. White paint reflects much of the visible spectrum, while black paint reflects very little if any of the spectrum. Confusing, and really doesn’t matter. But what does matter to the artist is that blending paints is tricky and the quality of paints is important.

As I’ve stated, I LOVE color, almost all colors. I find that the more I work with paints the more my palette expands—more and more colors. This is what makes many of my creations unique and is the impetus of THE LANGUAGE OF COLOR exhibit at the Old Post Office Museum.

Summer Exhibit: The Language of Color

Old Post Office Museum. 513 Prairie Street. Winnsboro. Louisiana.

9PM-5PM  *  Monday-Friday

~ Exhibit through July 31, 2022 ~

PHOTO: Rita and Ben James, Winnfield LA, and Diane Parsons, Alabama, at the artist reception of The Language of Color exhibit at the Old Post Office Museum.

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