a color story
trying new things...
Hi friends,
Like proud moms, we celebrated the one-month mark of Kopi Club this past week. We are grateful for each and every one of our readers; thank you for sticking with us.
“Suppose I were to begin by saying that I had fallen in love with a color.”
Maggie Nelson’s ‘Bluets’ had come up in several of our calls (thanks for the rec, Min!) The short book is an anthology of meditations on the color blue. Color was certainly the resounding theme this week. We spent Thursday morning working on our own paintings, using variations of a single hue.
Inspired by Nelson’s book, we thought we’d try something a little different from our usual style of writing. ‘Prose-meets-poem’ is an apt way of describing ‘Bluets’, and this week we wanted to echo this stream of consciousness in our own thinking.
N: A Life in Pink
I am lying in the dark, thinking about the first time I saw a burst of spring. From the edge of my open dorm window, a perfect choreography: pinks unfurled themselves into deeper pink.
These days, I want to be the color of “I didn’t expect you to be here.”
“Mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix” - ‘My Heart Opens to Your Voice’
Sometimes, the most fickle and superficial things have the deepest narratives. The pink contradiction - softness, but also resistance.
Pink eyeshadow - it is everything I am.
Familiar Colors on Unfamiliar Baggage Claims
December in an airport, again. It is almost Christmas and I am traveling alone. The flight is so full that baggage claim is an ocean of anonymous black boxes. My unlikely savior: a small, pink frayed ribbon tied around my otherwise indistinguishable luggage. A kind person offers a helping hand - I say to them, “See that pink one over there? Yes, that’s mine.”
Peaches cooling in the fridge.
Things I love about fruit: the endless variations of sweetness.
In Paris, a man with an accordion plays a familiar song in the dark metro and a commuter stops to sing. “Hold me close and hold me fast, this is La Vie En Rose.” Her voice is so beautiful, it seems to me that the trains go quiet so we can all listen. People pause, even purposely miss their transit to hear it in entirety. The words ring clearly, rising through the darkness.
J: On all the ways the color beige isn’t bland
Another early morning. Eyes still heavy with sleep, I overshoot the amount of milk for my coffee (again) and stain my sweater (again).
My bedroom is in a state of entropy: off-white walls screaming possibility. My only real achievement was tracking down my dream lamp from Ikea. Hektar was the first and only thing I built that night - he stood proudly in the corner of my room, casting a warm glow on my mess of belongings. Eating dinner on the floor in a poorly lit room, tucking into a lukewarm bowl of Thai takeaway.
Al-fresco seats that bring dreams of Europe. It is a weekend in late September, and I am sitting at my favorite table on the corner of 15th and Spruce. My neighbors are an old golden retriever and his owner, reading a newspaper. It is Sunday; the day of rest.
Clumsy fingers folding dumpling skin. Pangs of homesickness.
It is dusk when the plane began its descent; it is the first time I have been back to the Philippines in 3 years. She is a memory slowly reawakening. The cloud bank dissipates and gives way to the crowded and familiar earth. How strange it is to reacquaint myself with Manila without its bustling sounds and smells.
A camera roll of aging facades and sidewalk shadows.
My art history professor is talking about Agnes Martin when she is moved to tears. I realize there is nothing neutral about this palette.
It is a worn-in white. It is newness that surrenders its pristine guard. It is comfort: bedsheets faded over time, the ritual of preparing a nightly cup of tea. It is sentimental: haphazard notes scribbled on the backs of old postcards, and the pages of my favorite book yellowed through the years. It is proof of life.
It is through color that we experience the world.
For color is more than a physical property. And while there is so much beauty and meaning in color, we cannot ignore how fraught its history has been with complications. Every color is socially charged. From the very beginning, pigments were considered selectively beautiful - on canvas, or on skin. The human species has used color for oppression, rage, alienation. The groove of that scar still runs deep for many.
What we can do is hold responsibility for how we choose to move forward: with an appreciation of the diversity and meaning colors bring to our lives.
“I am as curious about color as one would be visiting a new country ... up to now I have waited at the gates of the temple." - Matisse
Hugs,
J & N