Color Detective / Perspective Detective -- words and photos

If you were a color, what would you be?  If you had to be a color, what would you choose, and why? Or, otherwise, what color would you be today, right now, in this moment?

"May the longtime sun
shine upon you
all love
surround you
and the pure light
within you
guide your way on........"




here are some colors I saw during my lunchtime walk today.  the signs on the outside of this building (The Aspen Art Museum) say, "give more than you take".   feeling smart alecky, I thought, well that's lovely, depending on what you are giving more of than you take.  give more love than you take??  okay.  can you quantify it that way?  give more shit than you take??  more stuff?  more guff?  more ???  give more what than I take? 

I walked on, with this Q&R for today tickling my consciousness, still curious what color I would be or what color I am usually or what color I am today -- still pondering the ways in which we experience color.




Shall I go in and bring it outside?  Will the art know it's own freedom then?  Is it colorful art.  Oh look -- it's free for me to go in and look at it.  I think I will stay outside during this lunch break.  I'll make art with my camera-- or is that taking art?  Will I be giving or taking if I go in and look at it?  Will I be taking or making if I focus my camera in various directions and call it art? 

The other day, Stephen Colbert had a guest on his show who said it's art if the artist calls it art.  He said there is no other criteria for determining whether something is art or not.  I think he was a lawyer.  What about, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"?  Is art in the eye of the beholder?  or in the imagination of the creator?  or......   aha.....  Both.  it must be both, not either or.  Both is often my favorite answer lately. 

I walked on, thinking about One Photo on March 1st, Two Photos on March 2nd -- will it be Three Photos today, March 3rd? 

Here are three photos, each of the same place, each with slightly different perspective.....




Is it true, I wonder, that we can change our own world, just by changing our focus??  I see something beautiful in the little lake / pond across from the art museum. 

And when I heighten the focus.....





and then broaden it.....






I walked on, continued my walking meditation with camera and headphones and step counter.  Reflections, like memories, have different stories to tell, seemingly different meanings, depending on how we focus, where we are standing.  I keep my eyes open, my camera out.  There is a bounce in my step.

On first glance it seems to be a gray, blah-ish day, but I am a perspective detective hot on the trail of some small insight.....





I think it's just lovely how trees can appear in a bit of melted snow pooling on the pavement.....





the puddles begin to look deeper and deeper as you walk past.  the trees stretch and grow before your eyes. 

but what about that color question.  what color am I?  I am also a color detective on this grey day.  where is all the color hiding?






oh!!  I really like the orange with red with contrasting background.....






I walk on, I keep looking all around for clues.

up-ish.....





yes, that's true, I like blue, but i don't feel blue today.  I might feel a little floaty, like those clouds though.

when I look back down-ish, I can still see the clouds and a touch of blue in the sky....






i say it's art, but who is the maker?  mother nature?  father time?  the sky?  the clouds?  the wind?   me?  the people who made the camera?  I just focused the lens a certain way, directed my attention.





maybe the artist is the one who built the bike path in such a way that the water would pool just so in springtime.  maybe the path designer made it this way on purpose.  intelligent design?? 




I typed only subtle color hear instead of here.  Is that because we need to listen to find color sometimes too.  Coming through the headphones into my ears is a singer singing about his sweet baby's red house.  I can hear the color in his song.  It's a blues song.  :-)

Subtle color is sometimes even more breathtaking than bold color.......








if i was a berry, I think I might indeed like to be that deep red color.

if it's true that white is everycolor then maybe I'd like to be white, but I wear a lot of black, often with bold solids and sometimes I wear subtle colors.  my eyes are blue, my skin and hair are pale, but I like a certain brown that comes with freckles after playing in the sun.




that was all the time allotted during this lunch hour for shadow and light sleuthing.   now later I see that the website has resized some of the photographs, changing the ratio of wide to tall.  I'll let them stay slightly distorted, the way my own memory has slightly distorted the day.

after work, i walked the 5 miles to the community college for kundalini yoga class.  boy am I glad I did.

here is just one last bit of puddle art.  I think I love this one most, but I'm not entirely sure. 




one year, I think 5th or 6th grade, I wanted to wear only purple and pink.  my mom liked me in red.  my kundalini teacher is always in all white during our classes.  tonight I was in all black.  I kept thinking, wondering what color, what color?  all day, but I still don't know.  I love them all too much I think.  or just enough, rather.  plenty.  I love them all plenty.  :-)