#2 Color and Light

I have a Tiffany lamp, ok it’s not a “Tiffany” lamp, but one in the style ubiquitously associated with the company of breakfast at fame. Lamps generally have a primary role, to provide light, an article of utility. My lamp functions in another way as well, as a color object. In the daylight the lamp is a thing of pure color, the glass pieces as hard and impenetrable as jewels. Striations of opal visible among the peacock, leaf and azure chips, made bolder in shade by the licorice black bands that encase the tiles. At night color and light function together, there are two small, clear light bulbs that work separately from one another. You can light one or both bulbs, one pull causes the shade to glow softly, and the chips of glass seem almost amorphous, mobile, the once distinct panes blend into a solid mass, run through with strands of dark, pulsing, shadow.


Full power, the glass is no longer a physical object, but clean, colored, light. No subtleties to be found only jello segments, wet and glossy, pure, without nuance. Held confined in outer-space black iron cells. Somehow looking as if a cell wall were to be breached, the color would break free in an instant, a mushroom cloud, a title wave of leaf green or azure blue would spill out and cover everything in its syrupy glow, one color to rule them all!

However the magic lamp has one more trick aside from holding color fascism at bay or transforming into an object of soft, zen, contemplation. Looking up, the twining iron branches crossover the top of the shade, clear lamplight breaking through the openings; the light arranging itself into shapes, patterns, a language? I’m sure the contours have significance, I think if I stare long enough they might arrange themselves into meaning, if I’m patient enough, and willing to learn to see ,I will discover how to read them, watch this space, if it happens ,you will hear it here first!

Color Memory

At the age of 7 I asked for (and received) a subscription to Vogue magazine for my birthday. It was in it's pages I learnt the true name for ,what was at the time, my favorite color, hot pink. Hot pink was all I had ever known it to be called, when in thumbing through my issue of Vogue I came across some pictures of a wondrous lady. The writing accompanying the pictures was in the color I called hot pink. Not understanding many of the complex words in the article I rushed to have my mother read it to me. The ladies name was Elsa Schiaparelli, a fashion icon, rival to Chanel and the mother of the color shocking pink. I asked my mother if it was the same color as my favorite hot pink, she said it was but this name was older and probably unknown to most people. It was then I realized that I had a new favorite color Shocking Pink! It was the only way I wound refer to my “new” favorite. Jump to later in the same summer, the amusement park Great America, souvenir time, we three kids were allowed to choose one at the end of the day. Mine was a glamorous vinyl purse with tweety bird on the front. When the lady in the booth asked what I wanted I told her the shocking pink purse, she paused, and pointed at first to a pale pink bag, as I shook my head no she then came to my shocking pink purse. I never felt so glamorous, with my high fashion vocabulary and vinyl tweety purse swinging from my chubby, sun-burnt arm. I swaggered to the station wagon like I was walking a run-way, I felt I had lived up to my glamorous color that afternoon, shocking!

My Closet Pic

First blog !!! not a virgin anymore=)

Testing Testing !