Colour Literacy Forum #13 : Colour MIXconceptions: Comparative Mixing Processes

10 Oct 2025

11:00 AM (US Eastern) - 12:30 PM (US Eastern)

Virtual

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Exploring color stories in museum exhibitions.

This blog is part of a series. Click here to read part 1 and part 2.

I visited the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston last weekend to check out Virtual Realities: The Art of M.C. Escher from the Michael S. Sachs Collection, the most comprehensive exhibition of Escher’s work to date. I was curious to see how the museum would present his iconic images (about which most arbiters of taste in the art world have tended to be ambivalent).

Escher (1898-1972) is often cast as a “one-man art movement” because he preferred to work solo rather than to collaborate with like-minded artists. But his fierce passion for new perspectives on time and space aligns his work with major art movements of the 20th century, especially Surrealism, De Stijl, Dada, and conceptual art. Despite enthusiastic acclaim by the public, Escher did not have his first retrospective until late in his life. 

One reason for this mixed response may be Escher’s integration of mathematical patterns into his self-described “mind-bending images,” which were often categorized as overly intellectual. He was also primarily a printmaker, not a painter—a discipline that used to be relegated to a much lower echelon in the pantheon of western art.

Like always, I tried to guess the signature color palette for the show before going inside. What would the walls have to say? My hunch was that they would favor dark colors, referencing the stark contrasts of black and white in many of Escher’s prints. His status as an art world outsider also increases the likelihood of this choice. As I touched on in the first post in the series, a white or off-white palette is often used to signal the legitimacy of artists as modern or contemporary masters. Exhibition color palettes for outsiders (including women and artists of color), on the other hand, are more likely to involve darker colors and brighter, more saturated hues.

My hunch was right. At the entrance, visitors were greeted by the only off-white wall in the show. It served as a backdrop for the black text in the title and a large-scale self-portrait of the artist. From here, the initial cluster of galleries was painted in a warm tone of cappuccino brown. This grounded, mid-value neutral (not too dark, not too light, not too colorful) provided an excellent backdrop for Escher’s works on paper, displayed with white mattes and black frames. It also created a kind of visual “breathing room” that allowed viewers to contemplate the art on its own terms. At the center of these galleries, a wall-sized digital reproduction drew viewers into the juicy details of an imaginative, Surrealist cityscape.

Wandering through the collection of more than 400 objects (prints, drawings, wood and linoleum blocks, lithographic stones, and the artist’s working tools), I counted five other wall colors: lipstick red, two dark blues (one saturated, the other subdued), charcoal, and black.

I toured the red galleries next. This seductive hue may have been curated into the palette as visual eye candy. No doubt its intensity has the power to shock the senses. But it also strains the brain—stealing attention away from the art. To me, the decision to coat so many walls with this color also contradicts Escher’s more introspective nature and overwhelms his quiet, penetrating aesthetic. A little red goes a long way! 

The charcoal, black, and dark blue walls interacted with the images in a different way. These somber colors did help to convey the mystery of Escher’s imaginative graphic journeys. But their darkness also competed with the artwork due to the extreme value contrast with the white mattes surrounding the prints. An interesting fact about color interaction is that, like it or not, our attention is immediately drawn to strong contrasts of dark and light. The bulk of this visual turbulence usually takes place below our conscious radar. But that doesn’t mean it’s not affecting us. And with so much art and so many walls, the constant interference can be exhausting. 

On my drive back to Austin, I couldn’t stop marveling at Escher’s contemplative temperament. Rather than the googly-eyed intensity of Escher as the sensationalist trickster that I was expecting to find (take another look at that portrait!), I was moved by his loving attention to the details of nature, his quiet fascination with the underlying geometric patterns connecting each thing to everything else, from the rippled currents in the water to the trees and the moon reflected in it. And this got me thinking about how color might have been used differently in the show.

The exhibits were mostly organized sequentially, but the flow of Escher’s work from one phase to the next was hard to track as viewers made their way through the disorienting labyrinth of galleries. Together with the rapid switching back and forth between unrelated colors on the walls, the visual noise of all the contrasting darks and lights, and the sheer volume of art on display, the experience could be both confusing and exhausting. 

Changing the color palette, and perhaps even introducing more of a theme, could not only provide greater cohesion, but offer a bit more space to focus—meditate even—on the concentrated subtlety of Escher’s eye. I love thinking about colors as notes in a chord. Each color asserts its own distinctive voice, and they all harmonize together into a unified expression. Just like a chord, a signature palette usually features two or more colors. 

To share my process for building an overall color story, I sketched out a new color palette for this show based on three phases of Escher’s artistic life:

Taking inspiration from the cappuccino-colored galleries at the museum, I anchored my palette with a selection of chromatic neutrals. Chromatic neutrals can hail from any chromatic hue family (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, or magenta). But there’s a caveat: these elegant, nuanced colors also contain healthy doses of achromatic color (black, white, or gray) that tone down the intensity of the saturated hues. Whether light, middle, or dark, chromatic neutrals are ideal for exhibition walls (and your walls at home!) because unlike their eye-catching relatives, they don’t steal the scene. Rather, they are well-suited to the role of best supporting actor to the artworks they showcase.

For the walls of the galleries housing Escher’s early career, I chose Path and Sand. These muted, naturalistic browns hint at his close relationship with the ground. As Escher traveled from his home in the Netherlands to Rome, Sicily, Switzerland, and Spain, he encountered unfamiliar creatures, landscapes, and architectures that planted the seeds of his verdant imagination and masterful technical skills. 

Next, the mid-career section features Moss and Forest Green. Since lightness is often correlated with youth, I figured it made sense to lower the light level a few notches as the artist matured. Here, these two green-infused chromatic neutrals continue Escher’s emphasis on the patterned precision of nature. For this suite of galleries, I also morphed the lipstick red from the MFAH show into the less obtrusive Brick Red by dialing back its saturation with a dose of achromatic darkness. This handsome complementary color, which adds notes of urban life and creates visual contrast with the organic greens, would activate one or two small galleries and an accent wall.

For the third and final phase of the exhibition, I cast Noir, a dusky charcoal, into the palette to round out the color story. This dark, achromatic shade echoes Escher’s growing absorption with depth, symmetry, and abstraction. His best known works date from World War II and beyond, when he began to retreat into his studio and shifted away from direct observation into analytical explorations of space and multiple points of view. Of course, color isn’t the only lever a curator can pull here. My choice of Noir would cause less of the distracting value contrast with the white mattes that I complained about before. But reducing the overall volume of prints on display, as well as introducing more variety to the groupings, would also help establish sufficient breathing room.

Now I just need to find an architect to collaborate with to make a 3D model of my version of the Escher exhibition!

Virtual Realities is on view at MFAH through September 5.

Colour Teaching in Design Education

by Ingrid Calvo Ivanovic

Friday, April 22, 2022
3:00-4:00pm EST

Register here

This talk presents a comprehensive analysis of the state of the art of colour teaching in design programs of higher education institutions from different countries (Latin America, North America, Europe, and Oceania) during the last decade (2010-2020). The study was conducted as part of a doctoral research that proposes the development of a Colour Design Training Itinerary (CDTI) as a complete educational framework for the improvement of the teaching and learning of colour in the design discipline.

The study aimed to identify the main didactic strategies implemented and to recognise the critical aspects when proposing an innovative framework for colour training. The analysis focused on formalised and autonomous training moments for colour in design, colour courses, and the methodology was based on desk research and consultation with teachers, resulting in a comparative study to the syllabuses of more than 100 colour-based courses by considering the formal aspects and the main elements of the didactic strategies. Among the formal aspects that were analysed, we can find the course level, duration of the course, the entry profile of students, the specific disciplinary area, the course location, type of institution, and the course's language. Among the elements of the didactic strategies, we can find the learning outcomes, the contents proposed by the course, the teaching strategies implemented and the suggested bibliography.

The study's main results will show that knowledge sharing between colour science and the design discipline is not bi-directional or equivalent: colour knowledge is informing design through concepts and methodologies, but design discipline is poorly informing colour science. Additionally, there is a strong need to move from a content-centred approach to a student-centred focus that could be able to dialogue with design-based learning, teaching strategy at the core of the design discipline, and to embrace the most optimal learning methods for the future generations of designers (new technologies, channels, actors, active learning, among others) and the future discipline needs.

INGRID CALVO IVANOVIC PhD
Ingrid Calvo Ivanovic is a Colour Designer, Researcher and Consultant in Design Research, Politecnico di Milano. MA in Image Studies and Graphic Designer. Assistant Professor of the Design Department of the University of Chile. Member of the AIC Executive Committee. Member of the Editorial Board of Color Research & Application Journal. Member of the Steering Committee of the AIC+ISCC Colour Literacy Project. Member of Study Group on Colour Education (SGCE) and the Study Group on Environmental Colour Design (ECD) of the International Colour Association (AIC). President of the Scientific Committee of the AIC2016 Interim Meeting: Colour in Urban Life.

For more than twelve years, Ingrid has been a full-time researcher in the field of colour, developing methodologies for its study, teaching, and application in design, architecture, and art, in relation to other research areas such as visual and curatorial studies. Also, she has presented specialized colour conferences and workshops in different countries of America, Oceania and Europe.

I recently posted a new gallery called Floating World. This group of paper collages (named after the Japanese ukiyo-e tradition, which means “pictures of the floating world”) were all created during the pandemic. Beloved domestic items have somehow become unmoored, from teacups and dinner plates to jewels and toy robots. The curtains are open and the doors are unhinged. As in the other Cosmos Nocturnes, the churning heavens are ever-present in the background.

As I finished up these collages, I showed them to a couple friends after dinner. After the whole set of twelve had been assembled on the table—all these toys and teacups adrift in the rowdy cosmos—one man was noticeably quiet. “What comes to mind?” I asked him. 

“Loss,” he said.

“Where do you see it?”

“Everywhere.”

Another friend told me she felt queasy. A third said, “Surrealism. That’s what this is.”

I’ve been drawn to surrealism for years—especially the work of Max Ernst, Magritte, Joseph Cornell, and Meret Oppenheim. Surrealism was an experimental, wide-ranging art movement, born of the PTSD-rattled decades between WWI and WWII. A common theme weaving through all these works is the realm of dreams and the unconscious that upends the familiar comfort of everyday things. 

Surrealism never really went away, but it’s having a moment again. This is evident in shows like Surrealism Beyond Borders, the blockbuster exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art that closed in January. If you find yourself in Houston, Texas in the next few months, you can see Meret Oppenheim: My Exhibition, a brilliant, long overdue show that just opened at The Menil Collection. Oppenheim is an underappreciated surrealist master. Her iconic fur-covered teacup, saucer, and spoon sculpture “Object” embodies the disruptive poetry of the era. 

Our era, too, is full of old orders disrupted by unexpected winds. No one is spared from a profound loss of equilibrium. A global pandemic wreaks havoc on our foundations and erodes our sense of stability; even a multi-year retreat into our homes has not sheltered us from the winds of change blowing through the walls. 

My ongoing interest in collage is also characteristic of surrealism. Collage was itself an invention of the early 20th century (think Braque, Picasso, and Juan Gris). This medium is well-suited for unsettled times because it thrives on surprise findings and the juxtaposition of unrelated things. Collage was the medium of choice for artists who embraced a world beyond the limitations of logic and order, transporting familiar objects into unexpected dimensions of experience.

This is exactly what happens in the Floating World. Who unplugged the gravity? We see a comfortable chair, a beloved portrait, someone’s toy robot, the rumpled covers of an unmade bed, and granny’s favorite cherry pattern that graced her best china plates. No longer bound to earth, this collection of everyday ephemera handed down through the generations is now drifting in the currents of a cosmic stream, accompanied by shining stars and spinning galaxies.

The secret to this image-making approach is that seemingly unrelated things do not, in fact, have to be reconciled. Maybe they can’t ever be. Maybe that’s okay. In the end, after all, it's not really about our things. They serve as a kind of “touch point” or vessel for our sense of what matters. We care about our belongings because of the memories they hold—the people we love, the times we remember, and the things that make us smile. Maybe the loss we feel when our lives are disrupted is also the place where a heartbreaking kind of beauty comes in, the vulnerable tenderness we feel because we know things don’t last forever. This is the beauty of impermanence and the impermanence of beauty.

Recognizing this beauty helps to explain the enduring charm of the small, palm-sized netsuke that have found their way into the collages (“Raft,” “Pearl,” “Rocket,” “Basket”). I wrote about my encounter with these delightful creations in a previous post. In the Floating World, a moment in time has been frozen: the surprised bunny checks out a glistening pearl as an appetizer dish sails in from behind; an amused mama tiger grooms her precious cub who is enchanted with the hunting dog pendant floating by; the sleepy-eyed goat curled up against a red leather footstool watches a toy rocket blasting off into space.

What does it mean to belong to something that is so dear, but doesn’t last? 

Most likely, we will never know the answer. Still, here we are, together in a mad, unruly, beautiful world, with galaxies yawning around us. We may not be equipped to make an easy peace between the teacup and the cosmos. But we can follow in the path of surrealism and say yes to all of it.

Exploring color stories in museum exhibitions.   

This blog is part of a series. You can read the first installment here.

While we’re on the theme of red, I visited the Blanton Museum at the University of Texas a few days ago to listen again to what the walls had to say. Due to an ambitious construction project currently underway (new outdoor performance spaces, a public patio, a new garden), the main entrance was walled off. To get into the museum, visitors had to find their way around the back to a nondescript door at the end of a long, narrow hallway. But as soon as I walked through it, I knew I was in the right place because I was greeted immediately by a striking wall of carmine red.

This red is actually a close relative of the fire engine red I wrote about last time, from the American gallery at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Both colors are mid-value reds, not too light and not too dark. Both are highly saturated. But where the fire engine red is “hotter” (more yellow), the carmine red at the Blanton was much “cooler” (2% more magenta, 24% less yellow, and 14% more black to be exact).

You can see these differences for yourself by looking at the CMYK “color recipe” under each swatch below:

I was drawn to this seductive, rosy hue on the right for several reasons. Red is a tricky color to use; a little red goes a long way. Glamorous and eye-catching, red is a diva color. It can easily suck the air out of a room. This was indeed the case in Houston at the 18th and 19th century American Gallery, where the more aggressive red on the left suffocated the art with boisterous visual noise. This happened not only because they used so much of it, but also because hotter colors tend to draw more attention than cooler ones. 

At the Blanton, the design team didn’t smother the entire hallway with a loud, red-hot hue. Instead, they used a cooler, more subdued red—and they didn’t use too much of it. The other walls were painted a clean, airy white to provide some contrast and give the eye a rest. Their color design for this back hallway also struck me as a creative solution to the challenge presented by the circumstances—the main entrance was a confusing, chaotic mess, and the unexpected appearance of this beautiful red in the temporary entryway was both inviting and anchoring. 

Upstairs on the second floor, I was excited to check out Assembly: New Acquisitions by Contemporary Black Artists because it represents another potential point of tension in color design—the use of dark, bold hues in exhibits of work by artists of color. 

Since at least the mid-twentieth century, “gallery white” has been the gold standard for presenting “serious” modern art made by highly regarded, mostly white male artists. By contrast, color palettes for exhibitions involving artists of color (and other art world outsiders) tend to be darker, more colorful, and more saturated. The unspoken message about “otherness” is obvious. 

I walked through just such a white-walled gallery of modern art en route to the Assembly exhibition. To my delight, the walls of Assembly were also painted white, breaking the usual pattern. But there were also delicate splashes of color—in the carmine red of the show title, and in the enchanting rose light emanating from Cauleen Smith’s neon sculpture Light Up Your Life (For Sandra Bland), which reflected from the ceiling, walls, and polished floors.

I think the lighting design for this exhibition is brilliant. The Blanton chose to dignify these works by contemporary black artists with the classic elegance and formality of traditional gallery white. Yet they also took advantage of colored lighting to transform the flatness and sterility that stark white walls can sometimes create into an immersive, ethereal atmosphere. 

Engaging the fullness of the space in this way shifts the visitor’s experience from simply observing artworks to participating in a whole spatial drama. In this light, individual pieces take on new layers of personal involvement. Nari Ward’s Spellbound, for example, presents an upright piano coated in Spanish moss and old keys bathed in a moody shade of cobalt blue, while video collages of “forgotten histories” play across the old, scavenged instrument.

If you’re in Austin, it’s a wonderful show—up at the Blanton through May 8th.

Read the next post in “If walls could talk.”

Exploring color stories in museum exhibitions.

Whenever I visit a new museum show, I always check out the color palette first. The colors featured on the banners outside, the splashy title inside, the merchandise in the gift shop, the art itself, and especially the gallery walls are all part of an orchestrated color story. Together, they might establish the theme, set the mood, echo or contrast with the artwork, and more.

I’m so obsessed with color myself, I usually try to guess what the palette will be before I get there! For most of us, though, color tends to operate a bit under the radar. We generally focus more on the art and ignore the walls. Yet even if we don’t realize it, the colors in the exhibition affect the way we see the art. Light or dark, warm or cool, saturated or muted, the color story is full of important information hidden in plain sight.

Going to an art museum is a great way to practice color theory because every exhibition offers a case study in color interaction. There’s also the whole underappreciated territory of “color codes” to consider—all the overlapping meanings, ideas, associations, and (usually hidden) biases that colors carry with them. 

Working deliberately and appropriately with color stories is one of the keys to good exhibition design. It’s also the kind of thing that bothers the hell out of me when it’s done poorly. So I decided to begin a series of posts exploring how color palettes function in art exhibitions, starting with my recent visit to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. 

Last week, I went to Houston to celebrate my birthday and soak in some art. The Calder-Picasso show was on my must-see list, especially since it was about to close. I was pretty sure the color palette would include fire engine red because Calder’s bright red-orange sculpture The Crab sits just outside the museum’s front door. Calder often included this bold hue in many of his playful sculptures and mobiles—alongside deep blue and optimistic yellow, the symbolic color triad of the 20th century. Fire engine red is hot, dangerous, and modern. Superman wears it. So do lots of other superheroes. 

Picasso needed to be represented in the palette, too—and he was. In 2013, Picasso Black and White opened at the museum, a major exhibition focused on his lifelong exploration of these powerful yin-yang colors. As the lightest of the achromatic colors, white provides a neutral, serious, and sometimes sterile background that promises not to compete with the art. For decades, white or off-white has been the fallback choice for most gallery walls. White and black not only pair well with each other, they also look great with any kind of red.

Indeed, every wall but one in the Calder-Picasso show was coated in some version of white. The title wall was white, with black and red text. The second wall was painted fire engine red, an eye-catching frame for two large-scale black and white photos: one portrait of Calder, the other of Picasso. 

If anything, the color balance could have been shifted a bit more toward red without overwhelming the viewer, in homage to the frisky spirit that animates the work of both artists. But overall, I thought the color strategy was effective. The restrained dose of high-energy red set the tone, while the tried-and-true white walls allowed plenty of breathing room for the art.

As soon as I left the Calder-Picasso show, I noticed another luminous red emanating from a nearby gallery. Curious, I followed the glow into an installation of early American art, fashion, and furniture. Here was that screaming fire engine red again. Only this time, it took over every wall, drowning out the art. They even doubled down on the garish gold frames around most of these paintings by covering not just the trim, but entire doorways with metallic blasts of gold. So much for balance!

The cacophony of red and gold in this gallery was cringe-worthy on several fronts, worst perhaps because it suggested that the museum was selling its own collection short. Were they trying to lend these “dusty old” works more pizazz by revving up the walls?

When you present shiny gold frames like these against so much red, they appear even brighter. Inside the frames are paintings of respectable citizens wearing their Sunday best, as well as the occasional landscape. The color palette in the artwork is deliberately restrained, with an abundance of warm and cool browns and touches of black, gray, and white. Seen against an all-encompassing red, however, the subtle pigments used by the artists end up looking muddy, drab, and dark.

To appreciate the subtle nuances of color in the artwork, the color story on the walls would need to back off and turn down the volume. Any more neutral tones could work, from colonial blue to mossy gray-green. If the design team really wanted to use red, they could choose a deeper shade of organic red, a warm earthy brown, or a lighter tone of reddish-gray. 

Whether or not we’re listening, the walls are always talking. So for all of us color designers out there: what do we want them to say?

Read the next post in “If walls could talk.”

In this new year, I’m focusing my sights on the enduring power of the creative spirit and offering a toast to the beauty of small things.

2021 closed on a high note courtesy of my recent trip to New York City. While I was there, I fell in love with “The Hare with Amber Eyes,” an exquisite exhibition at the Jewish Museum. The exhibition takes its title from an extraordinary memoir by Edmund de Waal about a collection of Japanese netsuke purchased by his great uncle, Charles Ephrussi. During WWII, this collection of tiny carvings made from wood, ivory, and bone were ingeniously stowed away in a mattress to elude confiscation by the Nazis. 

Netsuke are miniature sculptures traditionally used as kimono ornaments, button-like toggles fastened to a sash with a silk cord. Each one can fit easily in the palm of your hand; each is unique and feels very much alive. In the exhibition, there’s a tumble of playful turtles climbing over each other in a heap, beggars scratching themselves, and a wily octopus spooning with a courtesan. There are monks and street vendors, masks and skulls and lovers making love; dragons, dogs, frogs, and rat catchers on their daily rounds; and one charming ivory hare with inset amber eyes. 

These netsuke possess two qualities that I find irresistible—a heightened appreciation of seemingly insignificant moments and a refreshing, down-to-earth sense of humor. How did such common objects as kimono-toggles become the vessels of a truly extraordinary artistic tradition? Why are humans compelled to make beautiful things not just to hang on the wall, but to wear and use every day? Netsuke feed my obsession with “art for daily life.” These uncanny carvings are not simply eye candy—more like soul food.

Edmund de Waal seems to have been fascinated by these qualities himself. In his memoir, he confesses his desire to “know what the relationship has been between this wooden thing that I am rolling between my fingers . . . and where it has been. . . . I want to know whose hands it has been in and what they felt about it and thought about it.”

I love the word beauty, but it’s a tricky concept. What we consider beautiful is often determined by cultural biases, not to mention questions of wealth and power. Nevertheless, I have a hunch that at its core, beauty is fundamental to our well being. It is also deeply personal. There is something precious and powerful about the way we cherish familiar things. Perhaps they embody the tenderness of lost moments or of fond memories that almost slipped away. Whatever the reason, art has a way of reminding us about the small things that pluck our heartstrings and make us smile.

Each December I celebrate the Christmas holidays by decorating way too many cutout cookies with at least seven different bowls of colored icing, an arduous process demanding hours of concentration bent over a wax-paper-covered kitchen counter that, by the end of the evening, bears some resemblance to a Jackson Pollock drip painting.

This year’s cookie workshop produced pink, purple, and yellow ice cream cones, red, green, and blue ducks, bikini-clad ladies (fashioned from gingerbread men cookie cutters), guitars, palm trees, hearts, stars, multicolored versions of the state of Texas, cardinals, owls, angels, armadillos, dachshunds, pickup trucks carrying freshly cut Christmas trees, and my personal favorite—a paintbrush that conveniently transforms into a broomstick. 

Once the motley menagerie was packaged for various holiday destinations, I set off for New York City to quell my unquenchable thirst for “high culture” and soak in the festive seasonal vibes. Two of my top three highlights were The Hare With Amber Eyes at the Jewish Museum and Hadestown on Broadway, with its colorful cast of characters lured by Persephone deep into the heart of the underworld. But the real reason for my visit was a long overdue solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art featuring the work of Swiss artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp, a pioneer of European abstraction who was very much ahead of her time.

I caught my first whiff of Taeuber-Arp’s work just a couple years ago, by way of my obsession with making “art for daily life.” The name Arp was certainly familiar. Her husband Jean (Hans) Arp was one of the core avant-garde artists responsible for Dada, a satirical, non-rationalist movement formed in Zurich during WWI. I’m a huge fan of Dada, so why hadn’t I heard of Sophie? She was there too, staging performances and absurdist plays, and dancing in the backroom of Cabaret Voltaire with a band of disenchanted poets, painters, and designers hellbent on creating an alternative expression in response to the horrific madness of the war.

Sophie did it all. In addition to being the family breadwinner, she was also a trained dancer and multidisciplinary artist. She created modernist furniture, stained glass windows, and interior designs, illustrated books, and made paintings, sculptures, collages, purses, pillows, and a set of wooden marionette puppets for King Stag, her staging of an 18th-century play.

Taeuber-Arp did not shy away from creating works of art that charmed the eye in addition to stimulating the mind. She was interested in a bold and graceful interplay of geometry, form, and color, and she exercised the potential of basic compositional elements to enrich everyday life. The “intrinsic decorative urge should not be eradicated,” she wrote. “It is one of humankind’s deep-rooted, primordial urges.” Perhaps that’s why I can’t stop myself from dedicating so many hours to the decorative art of Christmas cookies every year. They aren’t “high art,” but they are definitely food for the eyes. And they certainly please the palate.

Here’s to celebrating the contributions of women in all walks of life, and to a color-infused new year!

When I was a kid, I lived next door to a nursery that grew Ohio State carnations. In the winter, they sold evergreen trees raised on the lot behind my house. Every December, my dad, the dog, and all the kids embarked on an annual pilgrimage through our snow-covered backyard to find the perfect Christmas tree (sled, ax, and tie-down rope in tow). 

Once the freshly cut tree was secured in its stand, out came the musty, timeworn boxes packed with ornaments, stockings, candles, and tangled strings of Christmas lights. Soon, all manner of bulbs, tinsel, ribbons, snowflakes, and stars dangled from the pungent branches of the ceremonial tree. The cobalt blue lights were reserved for our front yard display. We couldn’t wait till dark to light the candles and plug everything in.

This year, during my evening jogs, I’ve been tracking the trail of holiday lights in the neighborhood. A few maverick households leave their colorful bling plugged in year-round. But mostly, the spectacle begins after Daylight Savings Time signals the arrival of long winter nights. As soon as all the orange-coded autumn leftovers are 75% off, the shops dedicate prime real estate to feed our seemingly insatiable appetite for holiday bling. Witches, ghosts, and turkeys disappear, making way for over-the-top displays of inflatable yard decorations—Santas, elves, angels, grinches, holy families, candles, and pick-up trucks carting pine trees. 

Like a moth drawn to the flame, lust for light must be embedded in my DNA. I don’t know what drives this gut-level fascination, but I’m bewitched by the mystery of sunsets, moonlight, and stars. 

I’ve been writing a lot lately—I’m developing a new book about color literacy—and I’m working on a scene that takes place deep inside the belly of a cave. If you’ve ever been inside a cave with all the lights off (the park rangers did this with us on a childhood trip to Carlsbad Caverns), you will never forget what it feels like to experience total darkness. It’s paralyzing. Everything disappears; you can’t see your own hand in front of your face. 

In every other situation I’ve been in, darkness is never complete. Even when we close our eyes, a little light still gets in. Day and night are life partners: one cannot exist without the other; they balance each other.

I think love of light and love of darkness really go hand in hand. As a star-gazer and confirmed night owl, I can testify to the generative potential of the wee hours, far away from the daily glare. This is the celestial moment for moonlight to shine, transforming the landscape with its magic. We might even catch a glimpse of the Milky Way, reminding us about the vast cosmic galaxy just outside the door.

A tour of the Christmas card aisle offers insight into the enduring romance of the darkness, with festive pictures of families gathered around the hearth. Inside, the fireplace radiates the promise of safety, comfort, and warmth. Outside, it’s snowy, cold, and dark—except for the dancing display of bling that’s slowly taking over the neighborhood. Somehow, this comforting, nocturnal glow even makes the twelve-foot-tall PVC teddy bear on the south side of Arcadia Avenue feel less ridiculous.

I’ve been thinking a lot about light lately. Maybe because we are heading toward the winter solstice, when late afternoons slip into evening with that telltale glow of golden light. Inspired by the rich tapestry of autumn colors, I decided to make another pilgrimage to Ellsworth Kelly’s Austin, an iconic structure built on the grounds of the Blanton Museum of Art, and one of my favorite haunts.

When I heard that the University of Texas campus was the destination for a walk-in work of art designed by Ellsworth Kelly, I was elated. I admire his rigorous artistic integrity, mastery of abstract geometric forms, and use of bold color. Kelly’s paintings and sculptures have been at the top of my A-list for years. 

This large-scale artwork, with its limestone walls, double-barrel vaulted design, and colored glass windows, has the meditative feel of an ancient, sacred space. But Kelly intentionally created a non-religious, meditative sanctuary bathed with the sun-driven colors of the rainbow. Inside are fourteen black and white polished marble paintings and a spare, totem-like sculpture.

Every visit is unique, changing with the time of day, season, and weather conditions. Today, crisp midday sunlight streamed through the southern exposure with a dappled kaleidoscope of brilliant jewel tones. It was impossible NOT to step into the glowing pools of red and blue; then orange, yellow, violet, and electric neon green. 

What is it about this dazzling display of sunlight and glass that is so swoon-inducing? 

I’m not sure. But I have a hunch it has something to do with a delicious collision between the sacred and the secular. We all know that stained glass windows belong in churches. But here they are, defiantly breaking the rules in a non-chapel chapel designed by a “nonbeliever” artist who is not an architect, and who is not known to work in stained glass. Simple, yet somehow divine—a marvelous example of what color can do when an artist paints with light.

Here’s to breaking the rules!

I recently saw my first film in a theatre since the pandemic turned our culture upside down and inside out. It was one of the most inspiring films I have seen, especially fitting for these tumultuous times. The Conductor, a documentary by filmmaker Bernadette Wegenstein, shines the spotlight on Maestra Marin Alsop, the first woman to serve as the head of a major orchestra in the United States, South America, Austria, and Britain. It’s a story about how to turn every struggle into an opportunity. 

We learn that nine year old Marin set her sights on becoming a conductor when she went to one of Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s concerts with her dad. Afterwards, to acknowledge this pivotal moment, he gifted her a box of conducting batons. She still treasures the box as a tribute to perseverance—the power to realize one’s talents and overcome discrimination against all odds. 

At every point along her journey, Alsop was told that girls are not welcome as conductors of classical music, a profession that has long been dominated by white European men. “I’ve never been good with a lot of rules,” she says. She recognizes the injustice inflicted when someone is told they are NOT something, insisting that can’t is the worst four letter word. 

“Everyone said no, and here I am doing it.”

I love this. Alsop is not just a role model for aspiring women, but an incredible example of the grounded, non-elitist approach to art I like to call “art for daily life.” To nurture the next generation of musicians in her own community, she founded OrchKids, a K-12 music program in the Baltimore City schools that now serves over 1,900 children.

“I truly believe that every child is born a genius,” she writes, “filled with endless possibility.”

Hats off to Marin Alsop, a mentor for anyone with the courage, passion, and perseverance to find their own voice and pave new roads. 

Yours in color,

Luanne

Color in Context for Architects & Designers

Friday, October 29, 2021
3:00 - 4:00pm Eastern Time

Register here

Fellow color enthusiasts, 

With a team from the Inter-Society Color Council, I created Fluorescent Fridays to provide a new platform for international university students from across disciplines to network with color professionals and share cutting-edge research with each other.

On October 29, our next virtual event features architecture and industrial design students from Spain sharing recent projects that use color strategically to solve local design challenges. All are welcome to attend. You’ll also have the chance to meet their professors, architect Juan Serra Lluch and industrial designer Irene de la Torre. (Serra Lluch is the author of an excellent book, Color for Architects, from Princeton Architectural Press.)

If you’d like to attend, please sign up here and see you on Zoom!

Yours in color, 

Luanne

The winter equinox is just around the corner. As I gazed out my window Wednesday night at one of Texas’ notorious thunderstorms, pitch black sheets of rain punctuated by trumpet flashes of lightning, I have to confess that I’m obsessed with light in all its splendor. Light is fundamental to life on earth. Without it, we would not exist and there would be no color.

But darkness also has its charms.

Located on the other side of light, the face of the deep has beckoned me for years in the form of shadows, mysteries, and unknowable truths. That’s contrary to the way we often spin “darkness” as a synonym for gloom, evil, dirty, corrupt, immoral, etc. (Despite myself, the storm last night made me think of Judgment Day.)

To my eye, night’s most compelling feature is the way that it masterfully frames the vast pageantry of galaxies and glittering stars. Without darkness there would be no light, like the yin-yang symbol that so gracefully represents this intertwined duality. Not only are black and white colors, they occupy all the territory from the darkest dark to the lightest light. I call them the “Great Achromatics.”

Every collage in my growing collection of Cosmos Nocturnes is set in the splendor of the night sky, offering meditations on the enduring duality of darkness and light. In Soliloquy (Nocturne XII, The Garment), the curtain has been drawn back to reveal a seated figure. Her hat is a white porcelain cup and saucer; her head is a river of stars.

Yours in color,

Luanne

Cosmic winds blow back hot pink curtains. A lantern careens in the breeze as a brown derby hat floats by. A bowl of apples and oranges passes over an empty gold frame. Who unplugged the gravity? Why is the white satin blouse uninhabited? 

One of the things I always appreciate the most when talking with artists about their work is the opportunity to go “behind the scenes” and learn more about their creative process. In that spirit, I’ve been looking for new ways to pull back the curtain and invite audiences into my own studio. In this video, I introduce the collection of books I use for this collage series, show off my growing “bone pile” of cuttings, and share some thoughts about these images inspired by Mary Wollstonecraft.

We are invited into the theatre to take in the galactic drama. Comfortable seating is available. Please be mindful of spinning galaxies, luminous stars, and the miscellaneous debris that betrays our fraught love affair with life.

Yours in color,

Luanne

A Color Salon at Women & Their Work

Thursday, Oct 7, 2021
7:30 - 9:30 pm
1311 E Cesar Chavez St, Austin, TX

Register here

Dear Friends,

It’s been almost two years since I’ve been able to host a public color salon in Austin, and I miss it! My first salon since the pandemic began is finally happening on Oct 7.

21st Century Color will be outdoors in a beautiful courtyard at the new Women & Their Work Gallery on East Cesar Chavez St. in Austin. Here’s the blurb for more info and a link to register.

See you there,

Luanne

Join artist and color theorist Luanne Stovall for a deep dive into the art, psychology, and science of 21st Century Color. For centuries we’ve been taught the same rules about the Red/Yellow/Blue color wheel. Now, it’s time to update our knowledge, based on the way color operates in the world around us. Stovall will lead this salon to explore color as a complex network of sensory information coursing through our lives every day, signaling beauty, danger and everything in-between.

• Discover new ways to sharpen your color perception.

• Strengthen your visual communication skills.

• Build strategic color palettes for your personal design challenges.

• Activate your Color Tool Kit with 21st century design tools that enhance color literacy—a vital skill not only for artists and designers, but for impactful solutions across all disciplines.

No paint mixing necessary!

This project is supported by the Cultural Arts Division of the Department of Economic Development of the City of Austin.

Remember how we used to cut out construction paper flowers as kids? One of my favorites was the simple three-pronged tulip. It reminds me of the garden my dad planted every spring in Ohio. 

So I made a one-liner tulip doodle and cast it into a 30”x 30” panel covered with a skewed checkerboard grid. The tulip would be woven into the mix, along with a doodle butterfly foraging for nectar.

I decided to focus the color palette on the experience of seeing an afterimage. For years, I’ve explored this trippy phenomenon with my color fundamentals students, but I’ve never featured it in my own work. The tulip would be cherry red. To find the afterimage, I stared at a cherry red paint swatch for 30 seconds. About 15 seconds in, the edges started glowing with an emerald light, the afterimage color for the stem and leaves. 

COLOR PALETTE
Achromatics: Black, Grey, White
Reds: Cherry Red, Watermelon, Strawberry Shake
Greens: Emerald, Jade, Mint
Yellows: Lemon, Honey
Blues: Indigo, Cornflower

Lately, I’ve been obsessed with coaxing acrylic paint to look like gouache. Flat, smooth, and creamy. I wanted the brushstrokes to melt into each other, with no paint buildup along the edges of the shapes. This required multiple coats of paint and lots of 350 grit sandpaper.

When the painting was completed, two things happened. The tulip insisted on being turned sideways. And its optical illusion afterimage insisted on becoming a companion painting. For the second version, every color would be the visual complement of its predecessor. So the second abstract butterfly transformed into indigo. 

The paintings form a kind of duet. Both tulips are turned sideways—caught in the searchlights. This makes sense to me, as global warming has turned nature sideways. I’m starting to work now on a second set of afterimages . . . the checkered romance between bloom and butterfly endures. 

Yours in color,

Luanne

The other day I stopped by my local grocery store to pick up a few things. On the way inside, I caught my first visual whiff of fall. 

It happens every year about this time, despite triple digit temperatures and the reality that sweater weather is months away. The last bags of fertilizer and garden plants had been replaced by a new batch of seasonal offerings—tin pumpkins with Jack O’Lantern faces. They looked absurd. 

As a color theorist with a deep interest in holiday rituals, I’m obsessed with the turning of the seasons. Humans have been color coding the calendar for ages. Every season has a signature color palette, with variations that evolve over time and across landscapes.

If you live in North America, you know the color codes for autumn. Especially its signature color. Orange debuts in late August, when brightly colored flip flops and beach balls are 75% off. It gathers steam in September, as we veer toward Thanksgiving, accompanied by earthy harvest browns (orange’s darker sibling) and Halloween’s spooky late night noir. Orange conjures up football tailgate parties, bonfires and autumn leaves, the aromas of sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie.

Pumpkin Orange is an organic shade of orange with hexadecimal code #FF7518. In the RGB color model, this color is made of 100% red, 45.88% green, and 9.41% blue. In the HSL color space #FF7518 has a hue angle of 24°, 100% saturation, and 55% lightness. Pumpkin Orange has an approximate wavelength of 593.57 nanometers.

By Black Friday, the reign of orange is over. Shelves will be stocked with Rudolf red, pine green, and icicle blue. Everything orange will be 75% off.

In the meantime, I will enjoy the seasonal return of orange—not as a politically fraught emblem of our former president, but as an enduring symbol of the harvest. Two months from now, I’ll buy a real life pumpkin to set on my porch, relish the Harvest Moon, and bake a pumpkin pie.

Yours in color,

Luanne

I hope you’re doing well during these wild and woolly times!

Over the past few months, I have been collaborating with colleagues in the Inter-Society Color Council to present Color Impact 2021 (with participants from 24 countries around the world), hosting Fluorescent Fridays as a color research-sharing platform for university students, and developing the Color Literacy Project, a global initiative focused on facilitating colour communication across disciplines and connecting color education to everyday life.

Studio-wise, I’ve been immersed in painting projects (subject of upcoming blog posts) alongside a new series of paper cutout collages that I recently added to the Cosmos Nocturnes gallery. This series of twelve collages is titled Cosmos Nocturnes III: The Garment. I’m in the process of finalizing a “Studio Visit” video with the same title. Look for a link in my next post!

Why nocturnes? Somehow it makes sense to start with the cosmos. I’ve always found the Hubble Telescope photos to be truly mind blowing, and have amassed a sizable collection of beautifully illustrated Hubble books for my reference library. The dazzling night sky vistas connect us to the cosmic splendor of which we are part.

Mary Wollstonecraft was the inspiration for The Garment, with her courage, audacity, and unswerving sense of purpose. Her trailblazing book A Vindication of the Rights of Women was a founding manifesto of feminism published in 1792. As soon as I finished reading Romantic Outlaws, the Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft & Mary Shelley (Wollstonecraft’s daughter and author of Frankenstein) by Charlotte Gordon, I began to compose the nocturnes. This time, I decided to do something I’ve never done before—curate a persona into each scene and just include the garment. Sans head. Mary’s white gown from a portrait by John Opie is the featured garment in Black Hat, the first nocturne of the series. 

Each collage begins with a Hubble photo, like the view of M51, Whirlpool Galaxy Spiral in Nocturne VI: Homage to Magritte. The theatre is staged with a headless actor and a selection of props that may include comfortable seating, an assortment of dinnerware, and the occasional gold frame. Often a curtain is pulled back, revealing an elastic moment that links the drama to deeper regions of the cosmos.

I was surprised by a few developments. Once the head was cut out (this act always made me feel a bit squeamish!) I noticed that I didn’t miss it. Specifics of the actor’s identity seemed beside the point. But, in a nod to the missing appendage, all manner of hats made their appearance, from the classic western model in White Hat, and a flying appetizer plate in Front Row, to the teacup/saucer “fascinator” in Nocturne XII: Soliloquy.

Yours in color,

Luanne

A ColorSpeak Conversation 

Wednesday, June 23, 2021
12pm - 1pm Eastern Time 

Register here

Greetings!

Take a break from the summer heat to join me for ColorSpeak on Wednesday. 

I’ll be the guest in this event organized by the Color Marketing Group®, an international organization focused on color forecasting for manufacturing in a broad range of industries. Its members include designers, marketers, color scientists, consultants, educators, and artists.

When ColorSpeak host Alicia Keshishian invited me to the forum, I decided that it made sense to shine light on what I call the Color Evolution—my term for the dynamic paradigm shift unfolding in the world today through the expanding field of color literacy.  

I look forward to our conversation about how new technologies, scientific discoveries, and design strategies for health and wellbeing are changing the way we live. Hope to see you there!

Panel Discussion

Wednesday, November 18, 2020
12pm - 1pm CT

Register here

Dear Friends and Colleagues, 

Without a doubt, this year has certainly tested our resilience and upended plans, forcing us to exercise our creative muscles and think outside the box!

I’ve been working on a new series of “Cubist Still Lives” and experimenting with new materials. I needed something quicker-drying than oils but with a non-reflective, less “plasticky” surface than acrylic. I came up with a new blend of acrylic and marble dust that’s working for me. In a couple weeks, I’ll do a longer post sharing some of this process with all of you.

I’ve also been working with my team at LU+CO Studios to transform my paintings into “art for daily life.” This week, we’re putting on a free, online panel: Creating New Business Models for Designers. Please join us! 

Hosted by LU+CO Studios, this event takes place on Wednesday, November 18th, 12 PM to 1 PM CT. Jennifer Millspaugh, founder of Austin Fashion Initiative, will serve as guest moderator for a conversation between myself and LU+CO co-founder Jennifer Cotteleer. We’ll be sharing some of our experiences developing our design-based business and answering questions from the audience.

RSVP now to save your spot.

The project is supported by the Cultural Arts Division of the Department of Economic Development of the City of Austin.