Our reaction to color is instantaneous—or it should be. Ideally, a yellow light slows you down and red makes your foot slam against the brake. We all inherently respond to colors within the first seconds of seeing them. Who can pass by a tree of changing leaves and not get a warm feeling?
However, what I’m constantly plagued by is this: is the way I see a color– say red, the way you see it? I want to articulate what a color is, but doing so is a chase around a hamster wheel.
Webster’s definition says red is a color at the end of the spectrum next to orange and opposite of violent. Sounds like a cop out to me. Here’s my try:
Red: bold, strong, love, passion, energy, fire, confidence, daring.
Oh, and we mustn’t forget Christmas, the Cardinals, roses, Target, and my hair the first time I dyed it.
Actually, the color red in particular has more associations than any other color, so maybe I should just let these pictures speak.
Fire Dance 2009. Red. Dancing. Fun.
Consider this:
I was in a class that did light design and we talked about color and our associations with certain colors (red-passion, blue-calm, pink-happy). We talked about the use of color in lighting to evoke these emotions. We were then challenged to use them in a different way to evoke different emotions. I had a pink light and a blue light (happy and calm, respectively) on a sculpture of weird angles. In order to throw the feelings off, I used two harsh side angles. When the sculpture was lit it was really kind of creepy, not a color I associate with either of the two. This completely rocked my color world! I hadn’t consider the use of color or juxtaposing a color and something to create a different feel. It was a really interesting experiment.
Anyway, just a thought. Red, by the way, is my favorite color. I think it has the widest array of meanings.