Which of my senses would I miss most- sight, definitely- I truly would rather die than not be able to see.
All my life I have been a lover of colour- and bright colour, at that. No matter what the fashion or decorating trend, I like certain colours and combinations of colours above others- I love to design colour combinations for just about everything possible. I also love reading and finding things on the interwebs- without sight, all that would be lost to me. Knowledge is a great value for me too and I need my eyes to voraciously devour anything I can get my hands on. My job used to be very much knowledge-based (health research) and I would love to get another job in that area when I finish my Masters degree shortly. Merely filing and classifying things, or doing things using someone else’s ideas soon depresses me so I couldn’t get a job like that. However, when I don’t have a job (and I’m happy enough) I enjoy a myriad of things that revolve around vision.
It’s always great to move into a new place as I can give vent to my crazy colour sense. In our current house, I started painting it as soon as I could, although things came to a halt before We had finished. One day soon I’ll get going on it again. The outside of the house is OK as the previous person did it- variegated brown bricks with black window frames and doors. On the inside, it needed some pizazz! It was various shades of cream throughout with puke-beige window frames and skirting boards- blerghhh. I’ve changed the skirting boards and window frames to a greyed sea-green, planning on dark lipstick internal doors (we only have 4). In the front room, where we enter, the walls are a clear pale aqua and we’ve hung some screenprints of sandhills. In our combined kitchen/dining/TV area we have bright wall, the colour of orange peel!
In our previous house (a modern apartment with bedrooms on the mezzanine) we did the whole place in bright Mexican colours. There were 3 areas- one in deep turquoise blue,
another in dark, cool pink and another in terracotta. It looked great together! All the other apartments were bland white and grey- depressing!
I go searching for inspiring colour combinations on the Net sometimes, and on one foray I discovered Kuler. It is a colour-freak’s dream! You can play with the spectrum, using any shade or hue, extract the main colours from a photograph and get ideas from other people’s colour swatches. I have spent hours doodling around there- much to my partner’s puzzlement!
Isn’t this summery?:
Surf ski
Unfortunately I can’t make the images appear in here as Adobe has encoded them for use only in Adobe programs- more’s the pity! However, visit the Kuler site and have a look- heaven!
My hobbies usually involve colour- knitting, sewing, felting, a little painting and drawing, making kiln-formed glass and shape comes second. When I wanted a theme for a new garden after we had built a new house on an empty block, it was colour that came first, then adapting the type of plants for the climate, space and aspect. I tried very hard to obtain plants that would survive in the colours I thought would work. At our second house, once we had arrived for the handover of the keys from the builder, the first person on site was a petition-bearer from local residents objecting to the colours we had the house painted. (!!!) Although the house was the first on a new estate and at least 200 metres from any others, and the road past it was a cul de sac, the residents claimed our colour choices were decreasing property values, were “ugly”, “tasteless” and “too bright!! We had a cream rendered house with deep turquoise eaves, paler blue window frames and a bright yellow front door. Eventually we persuaded people that the colours were inspired by Mediterranean homes (it IS a Mediterranean climate here and about a quarter of the residents originated in Italy or Greece) and we only conceded to change the shade of yellow of the front door. We figured they wouldn’t go to the trouble of getting a court order and so we made the front door a more gentle golden wheat colour. I wish I had a photo- but I’d have to scan an old print and it wouldn’t be done in time!
Anyway, sight wins for me over sound/hearing although I have a degree majoring in music! While I can reproduce quite complex sounds in my head, I’m not nearly so good as with colours and visual stuff generally. If I went blind I could listen to music but I couldn’t produce or consume luscious colours any more. Nor could I read to fill my brain and keep it pulsing! Taste and smell would be a problem to lose, but I’ve had many times in my life where these were blunted by illness and I didn’t pine a lot for them. Touch has never been at the forefront for me, although without the feeling of pain I might damage myself irretrievably, like the crazy brother in the Steig Larsson trilogy. Due to the way I was brought up, it always puzzled me when people hugged each other. It was only when I got to the age of 25 that I found someone who could “make me feel something” when I was hugged! I have no memories of being hugged before that age and there are no baby pictures of me being held warmly- more stiffly or away from the body. So I can certainly live without that again- with some regret, but not devastation!
It seems as though I’ve spent far too much time on this blog, so I’d better do something else- it WILL be visual!
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