Color: Part One

If I could do one of those time-lapse photos and capture a single tree through the seasons, you'd better grasp the whole picture of color. Next to my garage there is an Amelanchier, or Serviceberry, which celebrates spring with white April blossoms. The 10-foot wonder evolves from May's lime green freshness to July's less brilliant, less perky deep green. Coursing with life-changing chemicals, the tree rounds its seasonal turn in September and gradually moves into a stunning brick red; from there the color browns and loses saturation. Now, as I look in January, the Serviceberry is a minimalist sculpture. It's color wheel, morphing over the seasons - lime to deep green to red to black. The wheel is a mirror of nature and a reflection of the changing quality of light over a year. That varying light has correlations with human mood, aesthetic quality, level of energy. But it ain't simple

The brilliant lime of spring is more ebullient, bouncy, sparky, than the muted, darkly sensuous greens of mid-summer. The red of late September is sensual and even aggressive, but it's also earthy and...mature. As the leaves move into October, November and brown out, they are autumn leaves, muted, cooler.

Color is its own language and hard to translate into words; the variables of hue, saturation, brightness, gloss foster intricacy. For now, just know that color is a reflection of nature and changing light; that the spectrum makes up a whole, and that we all pick and choose parts of that whole we like more or less.

Perky sunshine-shoveling yellow, for example, tends to arouse either love or aversion. Like purple it is one of those colors that is non-negotiable. When I do a color consultation in a client's home, one of the questions I ask is, "How do you feel about yellow?" Yellow gets strong responses.

Another question is, "Do you like blue or green?" Again, we can't help but wander into complexity. There are warm blues and cool greens and an infinite variety of hues between those poles. For the most part, though, blue is a cool and green is warm. That certainly doesn't mean that if blue is your favorite color, you are a cold fish. You may, be passionately warm and seeking the calming, balancing effect of blue. But blue and green is a boundary and people tend to line up on one side or the other.

There are winter palettes - gray, blue, icy, soft; summer palates - dark green and pinks and the crispy blue of a summer sky; fall palettes, with wheat and camel and brick red and pumpkin; and, yes, there are those mangos, limes and scarlets of spring. There are houses in Ohio with a Florida palette and houses in Florida with a cooling Ohio palette balancing the aggressive brilliance of those Florida colors. There is no color that is better or hipper or more sophisticated than another. If they are chosen with a discerning eye, all living-space color compositions can be worthy of Architectural Digest.

Which is where I come in. We talk, I offer possibilities. We discuss the possibilities and you choose. It's a true collaboration. What I offer is a gift for listening to you and another gift for pulling together the possibilities. For whatever combination of reasons, it's something I do well, possibly because I love it and it is a form of play.