Add a little bit of color

Anyone putting a house on the market is advised by most realtors to NEUTRALIZE wall colors. That sticks in the craw of color enthusiasts like me. In reality, an all-white or ecru rom is one of the harder looks to successfully pull off. To pull the scheme off with sophistication, it becomes crucial to introduce complex textures, a variety of materials and perfect balance. Complex and hue-laden pieces of artwork, accent pillows and other decorative objects including lamps can be color-coordinated to introduce varied colors. Generations past, the idea of investing in quality furniture upon marrying was common. My grandmother told me that when she and her new husband moved from Dallas to Ville Platte, Louisiana, her in-laws had purchased a railroad car full of furniture for the newlyweds' new home. She looked the furniture over carefully and sent it back. The miracle is that her open-minded in-laws were not offended! She chose items that suited her. I still have a few decortive things she chose and love them. In the more recent past, Americans have abandoned the requirements of buying fine furniture because they are attracted to change and updating frequently. With disposable items swelling landfills, it is a matter to consider. For those who who desire good quality' it is possible to purchase selectively and keep up with sales. I learned recently that Restoration Hardware has clearance items on-line. Once an items is selected it is possible to learn when the items will be in the warehouse nearest to you. I will check it out soon because it is my hobby to buy when things are on sale. Paying full price is not in my plan. The idea of changing wall color rather than getting rid of furniture appeals to my pocket book. Color palettes change yearly for home decor and painting walls or buying new throw pillows is thrifty. A house needs paint every five years or so and perhaps sooner,depending on kids, pets and traffic patterns in your home. Highest wear areas like entries, hallways, bedrooms and bathrooms can require touch-up every few months in an active household. Our dogs make it advisable to paint our pawed woodwork by outside doors at least once a year. Changing accessories is the easiest and cheapest way to affect transformation. It is fun to check out consignment stores, antique malls and community or neighborhood yard or estate sales for decorative items and other things like lamps, containers and mirrors. If you pay little for some ornamental finishing pieces, you won't mind giving them away or shifting them around in the future. Either way, play around with the basic idea of using a neutral color scheme as a way to extend the longevity of classical or major purchases.

Artists' birthdays in June:

Diego Velázquez June 6, 1599
1	Red Grooms, 1937
3	Raoul Dufy, 1877
5	Thomas Chippendale, 1718
6	Diego Velázquez, 1599
6	John Trumbull, 1756
7	Paul Gauguin, 1848
8	Frank Lloyd Wright, 1869
8	Harrison Branch, 1947
9	Meta Warwick Fuller, 1877
9	Elizabeth Murray, 1940
10	Gustave Courbet, 1819
10	André Derain, 1880
11	John Constable, 1776
11	Julia Cameron, 1815
12	Anni Albers, 1899
12	Egon Schiele, 1890
13	Joseph Stella, 1877
13	Christo, 1935
14	Margaret Bourke-White, 1904
15	Saul Steinberg, 1914 16 Jim Dine, 1935 17 Maurits Escher, 1889 18 Robert Walter Weir, 1803 19 Thomas Scully, 1783 20 Kurt Schwitters, 1887 21 Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1859 25 Antonio Gaudí, 1852 25 Robert Henri, 1865 25 Sam Francis, 1923 26 Roger Shimomura, 1939 27 Philip Guston, 1913 28 Peter Paul Rubens, 1577 29 Robert Laurent, 1890 29 Allan C. Houser, 1914

Honoring the Fallen, an old tradition

 Memorial Day is a time to reflect on those we have lost. The picture above is of my father, Walter Lea Boothe II; it was taken while he served in Europe during WWII.

I am indebted to Russell Studebaker, from In Our Garden section of Tulsa World, for his article on the significance of a certain iris with a long history.

When I think of Memorial Day, I am reminded of cemeteries and flowers. But I'm also reminded of one plant in particular - an iris.

From the Arabian Peninsula comes an iris that has been integrated into our culture. Ancient Muslim soldiers carried rhizomes of Iris albican and planted them at the graves of their fallen comrades.

When the Moors occupied Spain for 400 years, they continued the tradition. Then the Spanish brought this iris to Florida during their colonization and used it at graves, just as they had in their homeland.

Americans adopted the custom, and the iris has been planted in cemeteries all over the South.

 Its common name became Cemetery Iris.

The Cemetery Iris is so prevalent in parts of North America that many think it is a native plant. In fact, it is a sterile hybrid and may be the oldest iris in cultivation. Its culture needs added to its survival in the country as it is tolerant of dry summers.

In yesteryears, few cemeteries had water available for use in their landscapes and many, particularly those in rural areas, did not mow until shortly before Memorial Day. This late maintenance meant that these plants had time to build up stored food reserves before they could be cut down. Those two facts meant the iris thrived in cemeteries.

The slightly off-white flowers are borne in groups of two to three on 10- to 12-inch stems in April. The flowers are around 3 inches wide with yellow "beards." These beards are formed by long rows of feathery stamens marking the entrance of the outer petals, called the falls. Basically, the flowers look like bearded irises, and they have a slight fragrance.

These irises grow from flat rhizomes like the bearded garden iris and multiply rapidly, with side branching and forking. They thrive in the poorest and driest of soils, yet another strategy for their survival in cemeteries, and they seem to have few problems or pests. Left alone, they make a large grouping, but they are easily divided at any season, usually in the fall or spring shortly after flowering.

When dividing, include one good-sized fan of leaves with each division and plant the rhizomes near the surface of the soil. They require good drainage to prosper and full or partial sun.

 

 

Drought-tolerant Cemetery Iris resembles the bearded iris. RUSSELL STUDEBAKER /for Tulsa World

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A mail-order source for the Cemetery Iris is The Southern Bulb Co., P.O. Box 350, Golden, Texas, 75444. The company can be reached by phone at 1-888-285-2486 or online at tulsaworld.com/southernbulbs

Color Jam in Chicago

If you have subscribed to this blog, you know I am crazy about color. Most cities are grey monotones, but the following article shows what could be coming. Color enlivens environments and makes people feel hopeful. Follow the link highlighted at the end of the article to see other places transformed by color. I'm all for it:

Chicago, get ready -- pretty soon while taking a stroll downtown enjoying the sunshine, you will suddenly feel like you walked into the middle of an animated film. This is the aim of the new public art installation Color Jam by Jessica Stockholder, commissioned by the Chicago Loop Alliance, set to paint the town this June. In excited anticipation, this renowned multimedia artist divulges exclusive details to MutualArt about the opening and explains her goals for the project.

The idea behind Color Jam (proposal pictured above), Jessica Stockholder tells us, is to create "an experience that elicits joy and encourages the recognition that things might be otherwise." As people approach the prominently-located corner, flashes of color will appear transforming the area from black and white to technicolor, with abstract shapes reaching the clouds on a skyscraper or stripes underfoot on the sidewalk. Intensifying upon reaching the intersection hosting the project, the four buildings will be jammed with a "volume of color," as geometric shapes spill down facades onto the pavement, consuming the traffic lanes and sidewalk.

After months of waiting for the announcement, Stockholder reveals for the first time to MutualArt exactly when and where to expect this massive undertaking: Look out for installation to begin on May 28. 2012 with the artist on the corner of State and Adams, a busy area filled with shops on Chicago's famous downtown "Loop".

Moving outside the confines of the museum walls, Jessica Stockholder faces new challenges in the middle of the busy streets of Chicago. "I haven't before had the opportunity to address a street-scape with an ephemeral work," she tells us, when we ask her how this project will be different from her past work.

For more than 25 years, Stockholder has crossed traditional boundaries of painting and sculpture with her site-specific installations, found in collections such as Art Institute of Chicago, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, among many others. A newcomer to the public art scene, many saw her most recent whimsical installation Flooded Chambers Maid in Madison Square Park in 2009 (pictured below), where she utilized industrial materials and brightly colored ready-made objects to create what looked like a three dimensional abstract painting in the environment.

The most challenging aspect of creating public art, she admits," is finding material to work with that will withstand the elements. It's also necessary to consider code, public safety and the function of shared space." Despite the obstacles, the biggest reward is the "pleasure to engage people from all walks of life." As we anxiously await this alluring project and ask the artist about her progress, she assures us: "All the pieces seem in place and ready to go!"

Check out more public art in a city near you, in our feature "From NYC to Dubai - Public Art Heats Up for the Summer"

Written by MutualArt's Christine Bednarz

Color Vision in our Canine Friends

If you have ever wondered if our furry pets see colors, the following article can shed some light on the subject.

Our trio of furballs, Digger, Foxy and in back, Cupie.

How Dogs See the World: The Evolutionary Story of Color Vision

A dog takes a color vision test. He's trained to touch his nose to the color that's different from the other two, if he can tell.

It's always fun for me to report these columns because I learn so much. This was one of the most interesting for me to research. It will appear in Monday's Health and Science section of the Philadelphia Inquirer:

From the inside of our heads, it feels like colors are intrinsic aspects of the outside world and our eyes are beautifully designed to see them. But we humans are merely sampling the possible ways of sensing the spectrum of light. Most of us see more colors than dogs but miss millions of colors that make up the world for birds, reptiles and insects.

Why do we see the colors we do?

Last week’s column explained how some of it goes back to the types of color-absorbing pigments that we inherited from bacteria more than a billion years ago. The specific colors we see are, in part, an artifact of bacterial needs.

These ancient color sensing pigments are tuned to two different wavelengths – shorter ones that correspond to blue and longer ones that go with yellows or reds.

All other color vision is an outgrowth of that system, said neurobiologist Jay Neitz, who works in the ophthalmology department at the University of Washington. Over time, the genes that hold the code for our color-sensitive pigment sometimes get duplicated. The extra copies can pick up mutations that shift the wavelengths they’re capable of absorbing. Such a lucky series of accidents appears to have happened very early in the evolution of animals, said Neitz, since some fish, birds, reptiles, amphibians and insects are endowed with one or more additional color-sensitive pigments. These make up different types of light-sensitive cells called cones. We humans have three kinds of cones, but many other animals have four. A few animals have more: One species of shrimp appears to have twelve.

Somewhere along the line, however, mammals lost all but the more ancient color vision genes. We and a few other primates reinvented it much later, but dogs, while not color blind, see a more limited range.

Dogs can be tested for color blindness just like people, said Neitz. They can’t tell us what they’re seeing, but they can show us.

He used a device in which a touch screen showed three shapes, two of the same color and one of a different one. The dogs were trained to pick the different color by touching the screens with their noses. If they got it right, they were rewarded with a treat.

When they could see the colors, they almost always got it right. Knowing a treat was possible, the dogs still hazarded a guess when they couldn’t see any difference, but they would get it right just a third of the time.

In that way, the dogs demonstrated they could tell blue from yellow and both of those colors from white or gray, but they could not distinguish yellow from red or green. (Cats, too, can be trained to do this but only if researchers use treats that a cat finds irresistible).

We humans, along with other apes and some monkeys, picked up a fortuitous mutation in our long-wavelength cone, adding a middle-wavelength cone that can sense green. It works in concert with the other two cones to give a whole array of different colors — green, purple, red and many intermediate shades.

In humans, mutations on the X chromosome can interfere with this more recently acquired ability. Most people who are considered color blind have the same color capacity as dogs and cats, said Neitz. Men are much more likely to inherit this type of color blindness because they only have one copy of the X, while women have a second X as a back-up.

About eight percent of men lack the third type of cone, among them English chemist John Dalton, who wrote in the last 1700s that he saw slightly different shades of yellow when others saw red or green. Neitz points out that if Dalton couldn’t distinguish these colors, it’s hard to know whether his yellow looked like our yellow or our red or something else. At some point it becomes a thorny philosophical problem about the difference between reality and what individuals perceive as reality.

A few lucky mutant humans may have four different kinds of cones. They would most likely be women, who could acquire different types of cone-coding genes on each of their two X chromosomes. A few studies are underway to identify and understand the vision of such women.

Another evolutionary puzzle is why just a few primates got the green cone while most other mammals live in a less colorful world. Evolutionary neurobiologist Mark Changizi has proposed that this mutation spread because it gave our ancestors the ability to assess the health, emotional states and fertility of fellow primates.

The mutation goes back 50 million years, so it must have spread among furry primates, but Changizi, who works for 2AI Labs in Boise, Idaho, points out that all the color-vision endowed primates today show at least some bare skin somewhere.

Sometimes it’s on the face and sometimes it’s on the rear, where some of our fellow primate females develop pink swellings to advertise that they’re reached the fertile part of their cycle.

Others propose color vision helped primates distinguish poisonous snakes, or recognize edible fruits. “Maybe it’s all of the above,” said Neitz, which would explain why the mutation would have spread.

Neitz points out that just because an animal can benefit from a trait doesn’t mean evolution will ever bestow it upon them. A mutation has to crop up, first, and perhaps the monkeys that lack a green receptor are just waiting for their lucky mutation to crop up.

A few years ago, Neitz wondered if it was possible to give an animal that lucky mutation through gene therapy. He chose squirrel monkeys — part of the primate group that missed out the green cone.

No one knew if the monkeys’ brains would have the wiring needed to see more colors. But by giving the genetically enhanced monkeys the same kinds of color vision tests he’d used on dogs, Neitz showed they could distinguish yellow, green and red, just as we can.

Did that change their behavior?

One of them showed a definite preference for green M&Ms, after the procedure, said Neitz. And he enjoyed green beans."

Article by: Faye Flam

Office Colors Affect Performance

Give Your Office a Color Boost to Refresh Employee Morale

 By Stephanie Faris

For years, we’ve heard how color can impact mood. “Green rooms” backstage at TV talk shows are green for a reason, they say. The color promotes peace and relaxation. Giving your office space a complete makeover can re-energize your workers and impress visitors.

“The research on color and mood has been well-established over the past 30 years,” said Chris Ring, vice president of operations and training for ProTect Painters. “However, many business owners are unaware that they have the power to drive sales and increase employee retention just with a strategic use of paint.”

ProTect has come up with a few color schemes that could energize your office.

• Blue–While this area is generally avoided in restaurants and break areas, due to its alleged ability to zap a person’s appetite (blue plates can help one lose weight according to some nutritionists BBL) ProTect says blue is a great color for productivity. The color blue is said to increase a person’s confidence, as well as instill feelings of tranquility. For this reason, blue is often used in office space.
• Red–This might make a good accent color, but red walls are to be avoided. Red incites anger in a person, which can definitely be an unwanted emotion in an office environment. However, in areas where accuracy is important, ProTect points out that the color can help those employees be more exact. ProTect advices using the color sparingly.
• Black–This accent color can be used as a symbol of power and elegance.
• White–Usually spotted somewhere in an office’s decor, whether in the walls or trim. White is popular because it is neutral, but it also lets in large amounts of light. This gives employees an overall feeling of well-being, but be careful. Using too much white can actually make workers less productive.
• Beige or off-white–Most office walls fall in this category. Many buildings choose this because it is neutral while not being overpowering. Both colors fall in the “brown” family, which makes them the colors of security and comfort. These, as you can imagine, are good feelings for workers to have in an office environment.

According to ProTect, there are a couple of colors to avoid, especially in work areas.

• Green–While the green room mentioned earlier is popular backstage at talk shows, feelings of tranquility and peace can be a bad thing in an office environment. While you don’t want your employees yelling at each other and fist-fighting, you also want them to stay awake. Green may be a possibility in common areas or lobbies, but it should be avoided in conference rooms and cubicles–basically, anywhere an employee might feel compelled to doze off.
• Yellow–ProTect states that workers are most likely to lose their tempers in a room this color. While it does increase concentration and boost metabolism, it might be best to save it for break rooms and restrooms.
• Pink–Pink is another peaceful color. If you have a reason to encourage relaxation in your employees, this might be the best color. According to ProTect, pink is the color many sports teams use for visiting team locker rooms because it zaps energy, so in many cases, it isn’t a wise color to use in your offices.

In general, painting your offices can give your workers a sense of excitement about coming to work. Just be careful that you choose the right colors, both for your walls and for trim and accents.

Like the image? We got it from BigStockPhoto.com
You can take advantage of all the color studies used to produce this information for ProTect in your own color choices for your home.

Multi-Colored Lumens in the Newer Light Bulbs

If you have trouble buying make-up that matches your skin, I have a suggestion. Take a mirror with you to the store. Ask the make-up sales lady if she will pick some shades she thinks match your skin. Have her apply them to your cheeks. Walk outside in daylight and look in your mirror. The natural light will reveal which shade is more your skin tone.  My second suggestion: turn your wrists up and look at the color of your veins. If they are bluish, you are in the cool skin tone family and if they are greenish, your skin tone is warm. At least one make-up company has cool, warm and neutral codes. The next step would be to try lightest to darkest swatches in natural light to see which one fades into your own skin color.  Let me know how you come out with these experiments!

 Temperature in light bulbs is important to take into account for artists and anyone hoping to match colors. There are newly developed bulbs that take some of the guess work out of this, hopefully. I have not purchased any yet, but will to see if they live up to the promotions.

Read about them below:

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Twenty-two years ago, the government raised hackles in the food industry by requiring a “Nutrition Facts” label on packaged edibles. Now, regulators have a new target: lightbulbs. Starting this year, the FTC will require the makers of all incandescent, compact fluorescent and LED fixtures to affix a “Lighting Facts” label on their packaging. Not surprisingly, the new reg is something of a high-wattage headache for brands. Not only will the familiar wattage number bow out in favor of a brightness rating in lumens, brands will also have to classify their bulbs according to the “light appearance.”

Never mind that most consumers wouldn’t know a lumen if it bit them—how does a brand go about describing the appearance of a ray of light? For General Electric at least, the answer lay in new packaging. GE is currently rolling out a series of five new boxes that’ll hit store shelves by summer and, it hopes, change the way Americans do their bulb shopping. The FTC-mandated label will appear (where else?) on the back of the boxes. But on the front, GE will use a series of five colors—each with a corresponding phrase to describe the bulb’s light.

For example, the lowest-power bulb (210 lumens) comes in a lavender box labeled “subtle, reassuring light,” while the higher-power 1,170-lumen bulb’s box is bright green termed as “fresh, energizing light.”

How’d GE get turned on to this idea? Company research revealed that consumers tend to compare bulb brightness with the way the sun appears during various times of the day, says GE’s lighting brand manager Carmen Pastore, and “the package colors follow that pattern. The brightest pillar is yellow, like noonday sun. The middle pillars highlight the green, blues and reddish-orange as the sun sets—think of the color of the sky just before sunset.” Modifiers like “inviting” and “cozy,” she adds, work with the colors to allow shoppers to align their bulb buying according to their “mood and feeling.”

Which is quite a bit of marketing science just for a simple lightbulb. The good news? You still don’t need to know, or care, what a lumen is.

 

About the Author

Robert Klarais a staff writer for Adweek.com

Head of Aprodite at top, Greek