Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Meditation in the Color of Orange


I am not an orange kind of person. I am not outrageous. I am not vivacious. I am not exciting, stimulating, aggressive, dramatic, impulsive, challenging, or dynamic. I do not have a hot temper. I am not an orange kind of person.

I am a careful, thoughtful, reflective, calm, reasonable person. Mostly. Not an orange kind of person.

My experience with orange is limited. Once I had an orange shirt. It was an oxford cloth, button-down collar, long sleeved shirt. Think deranged Brooks Brothers. My mother bought it for me on sale. I wore it when I worked as a camp counselor while I was in college. That was 40+ years ago, in the pre-psychedelic days. It was the summer we were told the counselors couldn't wear t-shirts or other knit shirts because they were too revealing. (Revealing, huh? Anyone looked at a department store ad recently?) We couldn't wear sweatshirts or jeans, either. (Too sloppy.) I saved my orange shirt for special occasions. Occasions when I felt especially cranky, like when we'd had several days of rain in a row. Everyone was cranky then. I declared an "Orange Blouse Day," and I fought back. I have never owned any other orange clothing. Not even socks. Not even underwear.

I've been picking up orange beads now and then, thinking I should challenge myself and use them. I really should. And I will. I will use orange beads for my May BJP.

I spread out my orange beads and looked at them. Then I decided to use aqua.

"Chicken!" I shouted at myself. I got out the orange beads and looked them over again.

Then I did the only thing a reasonable person could do. I went online and ordered more orange beads for my May BJP.

8 comments:

Carol- Beads and Birds said...

vivacious, exciting, stimulating, aggressive, dramatic, impulsive, challenging, dynamic, hot tempered.

Hmmm...did you find a site that gives personality traits for people that like certain colors? I love orange and most of the descriptive words you used fit me to a tee.

I absolutely love your beading style. In fact, I have saved pics of some of your work, including your most recent doll. I love how you use different color beads in the same color family in different sizes and shapes to achieve movement and texture. I want to be able to do that and have it be second nature to me. Not to copy you, but to know the technique. I can't wait to see this page.

So, where can I find out what it means if you like shades of blue/green?

lorrwill said...

Where did you order your orange beads? I need more orange. I am not an orange person either so I am coveting orange vitality (albeit through beads and fabrics).

Marty S said...

Thanks, Carol and lorrwill, for your comments.

Carol, as far as where I got the description of orange, it's just what orange makes me think of. I know I've seen descriptions of what different colors mean in quilting books about color. I looked in my books last night before I posted, but I couldn't find that sort of thing. You can google "meaning orange" and get some info, but I went with my intuition. Feel free to borrow any ideas or techniques.

lorrwill, I ordered my beads from Bello Modo Beads (bellomodo.com). This is the first time I have ordered from them. I found the best prices with no shipping charges (I'm cheap.) there. I think it must be a fairly new internet sales site because they don't seem to have all their stock on the website yet. I ordered on Sunday evening and my beads arrived today (Wednesday). Pretty fast, I thought, since Bello Modo is in Washington state and I am in Michigan.

I've also ordered from Fusion Beads (fusionbeads.com) which has a larger selection, no shipping charges, and an easy to navigate website. And from eebeads (eebeads.com). Their inventory is smaller and there is a minimal shipping charge. I've had very good service from those vendors, too. I've also ordered from E-bay.

We don't have a seed bead store locally, so ordering online works well for me. It's strange, but not everyone in my household (ok, the only other person in my household) thinks an excursion to a bead store is fun, fun, fun.

Marty S
Crackpot Beader

lorrwill said...

Cool. Thanks for the info. The only place I have never heard of is eebeads. I stumbled across Bello Modo a little while back looking for Vintaj components but haven't ordered from them yet. I've ordered several times from Fusion.

I do have several local bead stores but they are ridiculously expensive compared to the web and most have incredibly poor customer service too boot.

My last bead order was to Firemountain Gems but it was all blues and purples.

pam T said...

O Marty, I love reading your blog. You are too funny. Can't wait to see the offending color result as a BJP page. I personally love orange (not as much as green tho!) and had to laugh at the orange blouse story. I too love your pages with the colors you choose and keep all in the same shades. I may have to use this technique for next year's BJP if there is one! I always feel my attention span is too short to keep using the same shades, I'm too inconsistent. this would be a good way to reign in my ADD!

Denise said...

I love orange!! I read your paragraph to my dh and he laughed because he knows how much orange I have in my closet! So go for it!! And if you want it to pop, add a bit of blue!
I can't wait to see what you do!
And thanks for the compliments (albeit unkowningly!)
Cheers, Denise

Anne Marie - Toronto said...

I had a particularly traumatic time with orange in the 60's and 70's. My brother married a woman who was absolutely in love with the colour. The had orange carpeting, orange chairs, lampshades and decorative items. We even had to wear orange bridesmaid dresses (not to mention the guys wearing orange shirts and cummberbunds). Blech! I thought that it had scarred me for life, but did you check out the colour my Avatar is wearing? Somehow this doll just wanted to have an awful lot of orange in her. Did I secretly have orange envy? Or was it something else? Anyway -- go for it!! Besides, it's a good excuse to buy more beads. LOL!

Robin said...

I shouted out loud (hooted, actually) when I read "Then I decided to use aqua..." However, I'm very glad you're going to honor that wee, little part of you that definitely IS exciting, stimulating, aggressive, dramatic, impulsive, challenging and dynamic... maybe even hot-tempered on cranky days. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!

Robin A.