Blue, Red, and Yellow

In high school, I got to take an independent art course my senior year. I wasn’t the most talented artist, but I enjoyed the history of art and creating things. Therefore, I chose to  spent much of my junior year hanging out in the art room while avoiding my other coursework.

I remember our teacher, I think her name started with an M, going through the slideshows of famous artists throughout history and how I thought it was so interesting that they each could display such different perspectives on their world and how they each interact within it. Usually our teacher would have to stop her presentations because boys in the class would throw clay at each other when she turned her back, or she’d feel the need to rush her curriculum since most of us wasted time socializing instead of doing our assigned projects. 

But when I was bored I'd learn about different artists and their works. I’d read about their personal lives, what motivated their art, the symbolism within their work, and the way their culture, relationships and surroundings shaped the art I’d grown curious about.

Although I knew a lot about these people and the meanings of their art, when it came to my own projects, my teacher consistently told me I needed to work on my use of color theory. I always struggled to mix my colors just how I wanted them and somehow my whites became yellows and my canvas always appeared flat, or 2 dimensional. 

Since this was a persistent struggle, I developed a deep admiration of monochromatic paintings. These types of work require incredible attention to detail and a trained eye that is able to recognize the slightest difference of color variation. 

Most times I still struggle to distinguish between blue or “Cerulean”. Red or “Carmine”. Yellow or “Saffron”. 

And, if I’m to be honest, I’ve found that it is easier to live life without having to use color theory. It seems more natural to see blue as blue, red as red and yellow as yellow. Thinking about people only as they are in front of me, or saying “that's just the way things are”, or doing whatever other people expect you to do, or shutting down when I don't really understand what someone is saying.  

But color theory is needed. Needed to make your art dynamic, provocative, and real. It is not something you can’t avoid if you want to really make your art into something special. And if you can use color theory correctly, you begin to see things you couldn’t before. 

You notice the way that cerulean blue reminds you of the sky during that  perfect day you spent with your friends on the lake a few weeks back, and how you have grown to love the way Minnesota summers hold you and your closest people together. And you remember how carmine red covered your knees when you first started learning how to rollerblade, and how happy you were that you didn't give up on something new. And you think about how saffron yellow reminds you of your grandma's wallpaper. Stained from years of chronic chain smoking. You remember how that wallpaper surrounded your most precious memories of the person you loved most in your life, and the way you felt its embrace during every visit home.

Maybe color theory isn’t really about the colors at all.  Maybe color theory is work, and training, and energy, and love and failure. Maybe it's more about discipline and devotion, and attention and care for the art you are creating.

And when you can apply color theory to your life, you start to see people as a collection of their experience and you begin to see yourself in strangers. 

You see people in connection to the world that they live in, and recognize that somehow it’s the same world you occupy too. You start to care about who they are when they aren’t right in front of you. You begin to notice who they were before they got here, and who you were before you met them there. You don’t only think about who you are today, but all the work and people it took to make this version of you possible. And you see others in light of their experiences, and recognize that much of our life isn’t always always determined by our own actions. 

You begin to notice the injustice done to those around you, and those far from you and it can be overwhelming. But you also begin to notice the sacrifice of others, the power in being human, and the innate hope that can flourish between you and the one person you would've considered a stranger. 

You realize that your world is not the only world.  And can appreciate what a beautiful thing that truly is. 

Although I haven't mastered my art of color theory, all I can do is dream that my practice is creating something real and maybe even important. And hope that when others may stumble across my canvas, stained, messy and smeared, they may feel something more than blue, red, or yellow.