Place imbues colour. In every community there is the potential of people connecting with their local materials to create colour — the resulting hues of such effort is local-colour.
A river like Paintbrook in Nova Scotia, Canada once supplied all the ochre pigment needed for paint within the region. I spent a day exploring this river some years ago, collecting rock after rock from the brook: Each had the potential to become a paint created from that place. Such paint gives voice to the place in its resulting hues. In bestowing that effort on a material of local significance, the effect is strengthened as it becomes something vibrant from the spirit of the whole community.
To understand a colour as a place, as in local-colour, we need to rethink our approach within this topic once again. While there is a good aesthetic reason to do so, the impact of local-colour goes beyond this. Ultimately, it effects the very way in which we perceive the world and live within it. This new perception gives value both to the place of origin and can act as a balm for the general dissatisfaction with our material lives. As we see the devastating effect that our consumeristic lifestyle is having upon our planet, a proper sense of worth toward those things we have is important. If we continue to value convenience above all else, I do not believe that current environmental efforts will be effective: Convenience devalues an object.
Local-colour inscribes wealth to a pigment through connecting its place, stories, and community. Here are some of the colours I’ve created and the account of their discovery:
yellow (coming soon …)