Finished! Well, Almost

Almost done with the Blue House--at least I've gotten to the roof line.  I've read that the custom in building a house is that when the roof is complete you throw a party.

So I hope you'll celebrate with me. I still have to finish the round window on the top floor--

but that'll be easy.  Then I'll hang curtains and decide who to put in the windows.  Then on to Blue House Interior!

All week I've been thinking about blue; Navy Blue, Sky Blue, Cobalt Blue, Aqua, Ultramarine, Teal, Cobalt, Periwinkle, Cerulean, Cyan, Indigo, Woad, Prussian Blue, Egyptian Blue, Slate Blue. My etching inks were Chinese Blue and Horizon Blue. Then I hit my crayon box and found Robin's Egg Blue (there's a robin living on my block-he's so handsome I think I'll draw him!) Turquoise, Cornflower, Pacific Blue, Denim, have I missed anything?

My friend, Mara, told me about this wonderful book,

the Secret Lives of Color, by Kassia St. Clair, the history of all the colors.  Browsing through I learned all sorts of things like, did you know that for a few months in 1673 New York was named New Orange under Dutch rule? Did you know that prior to the seventeenth century the carrot came in shades of yellow and blue but over the next hundred years Dutch farmers carefully bred a new carrot in orange?

But back to blue. It's easy to wander astray in a book like this. You know this guy, right?

He lives at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Don't be taken in by his cuteness--he's pretty scary-- and you can read his story right here-

https://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-met/collection-areas/egyptian-art/william-100

 

Egyptian Blue! to quote Kassia St. Clair, "Most Western Cultures didn't even name the slice of spectrum between green and violet but to the Egyptians blue represented the sky, the Nile River, creation and divinity and was thought to dispel evil and bring prosperity."   

No wonder I'm having such a good week--I've been immersed in a powerful force for good!

Something else has cheered me up, and couldn't we all use some cheering up?  I received in my email a quote from Bob Mankoff, former cartoon editor at the New Yorker. He's the author of the famous cartoon, "Thursday's out, how about never--is never good for you?"

He said, "Humor is the antidote to overthinking. It's a way of saying that life is paradoxical. Humor contains contradictions; it does not resolve them but revels in them. It says that the right way to exist among the contradictions, paradoxes and absurdities of life is to cope with them through laughter."

I hope that helps.