Do you ever have a series of happenings where some theme seems to repeat? Maybe you hear about an old movie you've always meant to watch, and then it comes up in a random trivia question, and then you are flipping through the channels and there it is. Sometimes it is as if the universe is pushing something under your nose and urging, "Look, dang it!"
For me that seems to be color. I keep bumping into books and articles about it. I'm thinking about painting some interior walls and wondering what color combinations will work best? I'm growing weary of a gray spinning project gone on too long and eyeing the crazy rainbow roving I bought in Pittsburgh. Here are some of the resources I've been enjoying.
From a Mensa weekly newsletter was a link to this article on the Neuroscience News website about how colors have similar emotional associations in different parts of the world. There is some variance by culture, especially when certain cultures use specific colors for mourning. This raises interesting questions about the power of color to influence feelings?
I'm on the mailing list for Thrums Books, which produces amazing coffee-table books about textile makers around the world. A recent e-mail included a free download of Speaking in Color by Keith Recker. This was part of a promotion for the updated version of his book True Colors: World Masters of Natural Dyes & Pigments. I enjoyed spending an hour reading through his take on colors and their meanings throughout the world. Episode 8 of The Long Thread Podcast also features Keith talking color.
And then I was reviewing the listings for my classes at virtual Rhinebeck. I saw Alanna Wilcox's class listings and for some reason decide to visit her site. And there was her book A New Spin on Color. I bought it and read it. What made me buy the book was a little picture at the bottom of page 8 showing both the painter's primary colors and the printer's primary colors. I thought Alanna might spend more time on the topic. However, I wasn't disappointed by where she did go. Her book has many, many pictures of different ways to spin multicolored hand-painted top. And she answers questions you may not even have thought to ask. How does a 2-ply of two separate solid-colored singles look different from a 2-ply of the same colors marled (where both colors appear in the singles)? How do you make stripes longer or shorter? How can you divide striped top? What happens if you split top and spin one ply from one end and one ply from the other end? How does pre-drafting change color? How does a cabled yarn affect color? How does plying with a single of gray, white, black, or brown affect color? How does carding affect color? How to blend braids of different colors to create gradients? Several of her experiments were things I had never thought of trying. The most unusual to me was a 2-ply where the top was split lengthwise, one ply was spun with all the pretty colors, and the other ply was carded until homogeneous and then spun. When the two were plied together the pretty colors still appeared in the yarn, but they were toned down.
Back in the spring I received a copy of The Golden Thread by Kassia St. Clair. Red Stone Glen had an online book club and, although I didn't participate, I saw the book mentioned in their newsletter. I had a birthday; and it was an easy item for someone to get for me. (My family does not want me to answer the question, "What do you want for your birthday?" with "How about a pound of obscure sheep breed fiber from a farm you've never heard of in Montana? You can find it on Etsy!")
I was only a couple chapters into The Golden Thread when I stumbled upon the Fiber Nation podcast. Once again, I think I heard about this in a newsletter, probably from Interweave. I happened upon the episode "Deadly Dyes and Colorful Cures" — featuring Kassia St. Clair talking about the history of dyes and colors. That's when I discovered her previous book is The Secret Lives of Color. The chapters are grouped by color families. Each essay is a couple pages on the history of a specific color — where it came from, how it was used, what it meant. It is a fascinating journey through history and societies, what colors mean and don't mean, and how dye stuffs have been discovered and procured. Since each essay is short, this is a good bathroom book or a good book to read just before bed. You don't have to remember characters or plot. Each essay is fascinating. Of course, the hard part may be reading just one essay and then putting down the book!
A parting thought. I've heard this repeated in several places now and I'm still thinking about the implications. The color we see is the color reflected by an item. When you see a red apple, the apple is absorbing every color except red. Red is the color that it is most not!
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