There is not a lot that keeps me online nowadays, but one thing is color. For like, walls, in a house. I am still in a grief-triggered painting phase, just like my grandmother was once in a grief-triggered drapery phase, because changing the appearance of one’s house is a thing to do that is at least somewhat productive. So I am painting.
A wall briefly became bright blue, and I hated it when I realized it matched the painter’s tape, or maybe the plasticky royal of a Lowe’s utility bucket. Then the wall became a light barely-green, almost grayish, like a snowy morning in January. Now three other walls in my house are the same Earl Grey.
My oldest child wants her room transformed to a deep teal, and has gone back and forth among several shades with names like Blue Peacock and Slate Teal. I suggest we choose lighter, softer tones like Spring Sky or Jack Frost, with maybe a Bermuda Turquoise accent wall.
My youngest child wants green for her room, and the first one she chose was called Galway, and that is where we just were, and where my mom’s family is from, and so that is what we will be using.
The big wall in our living room was a conundrum for a while. Should it be a carefree blue, like Mediterranean Breeze? Or grayish that almost tilts toward slatey, like Aleutian? Ultimately, we decided, it needed to be a deep, azure, bold navy, but with warm undertones that will still look blue and not black once the darkness of fall evenings arrives. That huge wall is now coated in New York State of Mind, a color recommended by my best friend, who is often right about things, apparently including paint.
The big wall was finally done last week, and I am running out of other things to paint for now. I need to get back to work. Think about what else I could be creating. The wall was in transition for so long that it keeps surprising me, that deep blue that echoes the upper layers of our atmosphere. I am satisfied with how it looks, I think.
The other day I put away the tape and the canvas dropcloth. In a few weeks, when I need to mentally return to Connemara or the tropical Atlantic, the tools will come back out, and my family will look at me quietly as I start taping the baseboards.
Most of my favorite paint colors often have names of places. Maybe I should sell out and go into marketing and come up with names for paints, because Bermuda turquoise and Galway green do evoke those places, and those places are where we go to feel rested, or at home. I can think of a thousand colors to represent the feelings that come with places. There would be fanciful and thoughtful names for the in-between feelings and the in-between places. Pantone for your ecotone.
Paint is a way to escape. I suppose that is why I am painting.
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Image: Wikimedia Commons
There’s this essay I like that I read 15 years ago in graduate school (and will never be able to place properly) about a woman who was also in graduate school for creative writing but for maybe her whole time there couldn’t stop knitting, weaving, and thinking about textiles and colors. At some point she might have stopped resisting this kind of making and allowed herself to lean into it. Where does the self go to find or re-find the self? How does the self make amidst change? Loss? Words are tricky, but color is-what-it-is.
When choosing wall colors in the past, I got stuck on variations of white. I was drawn to linen and paint colors that might have mimicked the variation in color in eggs from wild birds to domesticated. But in apartments that come in the colors previous tenants chose, I’ve welcomed orange walls with lots of molding painted white (creamsicle), merlot walls with gold molding and blackish green flooring, and most recently white and light blue walls, with one accent wall in charcoal to cover up the lumpy plaster smoothed over a brick chimney. Happy always for the boldness of others!
What a lovely musing on color in the midst of grief. Not sure what triggered this grief, but it resulted in a thoughtful and nostalgic posting which nearly brought me to tears. Thank you, Rebecca