Let There Be: Color!
Yesterday in the back yard puttering, they stopped me in my tracks: the painfully yellow petals of three coltsfoot flowers against the rock wall. And suddenly, as often happens when a pure, rich color meets the archives of memory, especially on a drab winter day--I was transported: crayola, Lemon Yellow, 1955. It happens often. Colors carry me back to Crayolas: my first connection of names with colors. The richness of the world overwhelmed me quite literally when I first saw the 'big box' of 48 (The grand collection of 64 didn't come along until 1958) and my visual world has never been the same.
And it is a synesthetic experience at that: who can conjure the memory called Crayola without wafts of smell-memory of sweet paraffin like 48 waxed fruits in a green and yellow lift-top box? One whiff and I am eight years old when I learned that, if you sneek to the back of your second-grade class and put a crayola on the large hissing hot-water radiator, they melt into rivers of grape and navy, orange and green; and the smell of color will be overpowering, flooding the memory permanently with the scent of pigment.
It was the color of this image above, taken on the same day as the Blue Door, that has made it one of my favorite pictures. I can't name the colors of the flowers or the lattice-work from the 64-crayon box. Can you help?
(BTW, the color count is now up to 120, and these are not your father's crayolas, with colors like Brink Pink, Denim and Macaroni and Cheese!)
Comments
Sorry, Fred. When I was young enough to be using crayons, there were only eight colors (at least, that's all that were in the boxes that I recall.) They had exotic names such as, "red", "blue", "green"....Maybe Bogie can help. Think she may have had a 48-color box. We used paints in school, more than crayons, so we had unlimited color choices. One of my favorite exercises in art during grade school was covering a page with vivid combinations of crayon, washing over the crayon with dark paint, then scratching designs through the dried paint to reveal the vivid crayon colors. Stained glass windows for us who had never seen a real one.
Posted by: Cop Car | February 26, 2005 7:27 AM
Very nice. Have you noticed that we really haven't lost the green this year? Leaves yes but the grass never really lost its color during this winter season. Must have been the warm weather and all that rain we had last year.
Posted by: Doug Thompson | February 26, 2005 8:03 AM
Yes, Doug, you're right. I keep drawing on this sensory experience past of winter being without color. But this one really has never been. At least global warming will have this aesthetic benefit. And the seas will be brilliant blue as they lap around the foundations of New York skyscapers.
Posted by: fred1st | February 26, 2005 8:16 AM
I think the blue one is periwinkle. I have a 64-box around here somewhere...I've not seen it in a while, though. The kids still get 24-count or chunky ones.
Posted by: Jane | February 26, 2005 11:09 AM
Is there anyone in this world who hasn't had a "love affair" with Crayola crayons? After 25 years I am now having "Crayola days" with my grand-daughter!
Posted by: Dottie | February 26, 2005 9:42 PM
When I moved to New England some dozen years ago, I was crushed to discover very few New England Asters here. Back in Ohio, they were always one of my favorite late summer/early autumn flowers.
When I drove home to visit my family in Ohio this past September, the New England Asters were in full bloom, and I've kicked myself ever since for not taking photos.
Posted by: Lorianne | February 26, 2005 11:15 PM
I've been reading your musings when I have time to click onto something for relaxation and thought before I turn back to the work at hand for quite some time now, always thinking that I really do need to send you a note of appreciation. As a Copper Hill native who has spent only four years away from Floyd County out of the 54 that I've lived, I can so deeply appreciate the connection you feel to the part of the world that is ours. Today I decided, however, that I must contact you. Those flowers are the Crayola color which came out in either 1992 or 1996 and was called Purple Mountain Majesty. I'm not sure if it's one that is still available or not. Crayola likes to keep things changing. I knew that because several years ago I stumbled upon a box of Crayolas (96) just as my eighth grade students (at Floyd County High) were stumbling, fumbling and groaning about poetry. I handed them the crayons and told them to create poems in whatever way they wanted with them. I got such great results that every year I make sure I've bought Crayola's latest box of 96 before I begin our days devoted to poetry. It's amazing how well these techno-kids still take to a box of crayons.
Anyway, much thanks for all your musings. I enjoy them so much.
Sharon Wood
Posted by: Sharon Wood | February 27, 2005 4:14 PM
Cornflower? (The crayon, that is.)
Posted by: Kurt | February 27, 2005 4:53 PM
Oh yes, these flowers are definitely the "Periwinkle" in the 64 count box of Crayola Crayons. This photo is absolutely beautiful!
Posted by: Lynda | February 27, 2005 8:29 PM
A Crayola memory....When I was in first grade (I'm now 55) our teacher got the class a Crayola box with a sharpener in it. Talk about a thrill! Somehow, I broke the sharpener. She was very upset with me and told me I had to stay after school for several days. On the second day, my baby brother was born and she commuted my sentence so I could get home to see him after school. I had the same teacher for 1st and 2nd grade. She was a fantastic teacher and turned out to be one of the most important influences in my life. I was a teacher for 33 years and always credited Miss Lefranc with giving me the right start.
Funny how I've never forgotten the Crayola incident and how she really made me feel that she cared for me.
Posted by: Jane | March 1, 2005 9:25 PM