The Process of Color

I have to begin this post with a little bit of celebration: everything survived firing!!

I continue this post with a lot of indecision. The range of colors and coloring techniques available to me when I sat down to glaze my pieces managed to slow my progress considerably, as I struggled to evaluate each choice.

Color in history actually came up last week at work, in a conversation with some volunteers about the use of color on sarcophagi and portraits in the Mummies of the World travelling exhibit. Our conversation was mostly about the limitations that artists thousands of years ago faced, the scarcity of some colors over others, the resulting style choices; but I must admit that whenever I walk through that exhibit, what strikes me most is not which colors are absent, but all the colors that are still present after all sorts of time and, in some cases, abuse. Color, as I demonstrated perfectly in my anxious indecision today, is most definitely a part of the high standards and capacity for representation and meaning in art. Color, like building technique, can be a clue to the thoughts and perceptions of the artist.

But another interesting thing about color is that it can be highly personal, as my choices were today (especially given that I did not have the color templates or sources to match those that went along with the originals my projects were modeled after), or it can be culturally mandated - by fashion, by religion, by power, etc. Examples of both personal and cultural color are common, in ancient pieces as well as in pieces today. To me, this is an interesting distinction to consider as we investigate and try to understand ancient art - are we connecting with, or evaluating, or admiring, the culture as a whole or the individual artist? Though there is a significant difference between the two, I believe both definitely have worth.