The Mercerie’s new ‘Mystery Crochet’ course started last week and it began with a rather intense two hour colour workshop……. A 7pm the stage was set. The participants sat around a large round table and a collection of magazine cuttings was placed in the centre. Each contributor was assigned a colour and had just 15 minutes to create a montage using as many variations as they could find of their given colour. We immersed ourselves in a rainbow and pieced together a whole spectrum of exquisite abstract compositions, and each one glowed with it’s own vibrant energy.
Colour is not simply a theory; it’s an art and a drama; it’s chemistry and physics; it’s geography, geology and botany; it’s every subject in the world, and the history of everything under the sun. But it doesn’t really exist; it’s all in your mind. It’s just a figment of your imagination. Surrounded by a vast range of pulsating, vibrating and invisible electromagnetic radiation the human brain can only perceive and interpret a tiny percentage of them as visible light. Most objects absorb particular waves and reject, or reflect back others. The rejected waves of light are interpreted by the brain as colour so, paradoxically, a green object is one that is simply rejecting green light. But that’s not all that happens. All atomic matter contains it’s own, unique, electron structure vibrating at it’s own frequency, with it’s own, unique energy. These electrons are excited by energies such as heat and light which causes them to vibrate at a different frequency . Different energies project and reflect different colours. With this knowledge, the concept of an object, or person, emitting a visible coloured aura seems plausible.
For every force, and energy, there is an equal and opposite, so when the colour collages were complete a little piece was sliced off and given away to the person sitting opposite. This slice of opposing colour was added to the collage and it’s effect was electric. A slither of orange on a sea of blue and a fiery red spark on a colour field of brilliant green are the visual reminders that for a colour to be truely bright it needs something to kick against – an opposing force that keeps it vibrant, alive and shimmering. Colour is an extraordinary phenomenon. Neither a noun nor an adjective; colour is a verb. It’s active and animated. Colour is an energetic performance. It’s alive and kicking. It’s the drama in which we are all the performers, not just the audience.
Photographs by Eliza Boo Photography.
This blog post is a link in a circle of blogs called Sisterhood Stories. You can read the next link by Elena T. here:
this is wonderful, such a fun idea & a great outcome. I adore colour, as much as my fashion sense is limited to jeans & a tee & when it comes to home decor i am not exactly going to appear on the cover of elle decor (or something similar) but i do know color. I think as photographers in order to be successful you need to “get it”. Thank for sharing. xx
Fabulous – I am so jealous that I can’t come to the course, it sounds fantastic! Love those gorgeous collages!
I find the chemistry of color quite interesting, it’s a concept that is hard to grasp. And the way it affects us is just as intriguing. Fascinating post, once again, Sue xox