Quixotic White

Typically, my New Year starts with resolutions that are quickly broken -- mostly because my resolutions are idealistic, unrealistic, and impractical. That’s how I view the color (or non-color) white. It takes me only seconds to get white clothes dirty.  Here is my interpretation of tying up loose ends.

Tying Up Loose Ends -- Mixed Media.

Our little farmhouse is painted quixotic white. It’s probably never really been truly white for more than a few minutes. Dirt is part of life in the country. From the road, our house looks pretty dingy. The gray shutters blend seamlessly with the supposedly white house. It's still a white house. Just not the white you expect to see in a white farmhouse.

Quixotic white farm house.

The fancy word for white is achromatic -- color without color. It is mixture of all of the colors in the light spectrum that magically cancel out each other leaving no trace of color. In theory, I love the concept of white walls because it would keep the colors of my art collection true to the artist's vision. In real life, white walls make me uncomfortable. I keep seeing all the marks and all of the imperfections in the walls.

White flowers of a castor bean.

I find it hard to make white jewelry look anything but cheap.  Well, unless I'm using high-end pearls. I tend to think of white jewelry as wedding jewelry or a throwback to the 50's plastic parures. I have a drawer full of white beads that I bought before I figured this out. I do have some gorgeous white beads made by Amber Ballad that don't look cheap. They're covered in pixie dust and quite fun. I will try to do justice to them one day soon.

Field of Queen Anne's Lace overlooking the barn.

There are an astonishing variety of white flowers in the wild. White in nature is almost always accompanied with a variety of green. I love our meadow with it's sea of Queen Anne's Lace. It's always a bit sad to have it cut for hay for the neighbor's sheep. At least until you meet the sheep. They're pretty goofy.

Neighbor's sheep.

White reflects and amplifies surrounding colors. It has an wide range of tints that are all considered to be white. In the end, white is an honest color. It is what it is. Other colors like pink are more duplicitous... But, that's another story.

Various tints of white.