By: Anne Lauren
Recently, I attended a Paint and Wine event at Golden Gate Park. I arrived excited and ready to explore what could become a new and fun hobby. I felt grateful to be surrounded by such beauty and was ready to begin. I took the photo below to use as my inspiration and began the painting process. I saw a brown tree, so I painted a brown tree. I saw green leaves, so I painted green leaves. I saw pink flowers, so I painted pink flowers.
The teacher approached me a bit perplexed and said, "Why are you so afraid of color?" I looked at her surprised. She asked, "What color is that tree?" I rolled my eyes as if the answer was obvious, "Brown." She asked again, "What color is that tree?" Annoyed, I looked at her, then looked back at the tree and saw for the first time what she saw: I saw orange, purple, and blue; I saw black, light brown, and dark brown; I saw grey, maroon, and magenta. The tree wasn't monochromatic; it was full of color! She smiled observing my epiphany and replied, "Add those colors to your painting."
Well, as you can see below, due to a lack of any natural talent, this woman couldn't teach me how to paint, but she did teach me how to see. On my drive home, I reflected upon why it was so challenging for me to see the way that she saw: to see color so effortlessly. I quickly realized that one-dimensional sight is a direct consequence of one-dimensional thinking, which is a learned behavior.
I was raised in an abusive, religious, monochromatic environment. I was trained to think, behave, appear, and see the world in black and white. Diversity of treatment, beliefs, presentation, and thinking were unavailable to me. Challenging this colorless ethos by trying to explore or communicate in color had harsh consequences. Living a monochromatic life kept me safe; adding more color brought me fear.
My painting teacher on that night reminded me to continue to challenge the world I left behind by adding more color into my life everyday. Writing is the first way that I am choosing to do this, which is why this blog is named after colors. Blue&Lavender is not just a title, but a commitment to a way of living colorfully. Blue symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, faith, and truth. Lavender represents luxury, power, ambition, dignity, peace, independence, creativity, and devotion. These are the characteristics that I want to define my life, to express who I am, to share with others.
So why blue and lavender? There are a myriad of colors to choose from after all. Well, when I decided to leave my former world behind and begin a new life by starting a career in the art and design industry, a dear friend of mine affirmed my choice by proclaiming, "Anne, that is a great idea! No one's ever going to point at a couch and scream at you, 'That should be BLUE not LAVENDER!'" In that moment, I promised myself while uncontrollably laughing that I would one day create something and name it after those colors.
So, here I am, almost five years later, starting a blog named Blue&Lavender, thanking my painting teacher for reminding me to live a life full of color, and reflecting on my friend's wise foresight: indeed after all this time in the design industry, no one has ever yelled at me for wanting anything to be more colorful.