I spoke yesterday at the Inter-Society Color Council along with several others and it turned out to be a day where I was both imparting and absorbing knowledge.
Robert Buckley, Xerox and ISCC President had a few opening remarks and then one of my colorful friend’s Leslie Harrington, Executive Director of Color Association of the US dove right into her talk. I was Leslie’s Vice Chair last year for the CMG conference and I shared the stage with her again today as she talked about “The reds of love and rage: A note on the risks of eliciting negative emotions” and I talked about “Macro moods to industry insight”. Maybe I can get Leslie to join me on a webinar to share her study of red very soon.
Next up was “A retrospective on the color courses of Ralph Stanziola” by Kim Galloway. I’ll be the first to admit that this doesn’t sound that interesting especially since he taught in the technical area of color but I’ll also be the first to admit when I’m wrong. I don’t think there was anyone in the room that didn’t have their eyes glued to the screen as Kim played clips of Ralph in action. Not many people have the talent to talk about technology in a way that captivates the non-technical crowd but we learned from Kim that this was one of Ralph’s many gifts.
After lunch two more speakers shared their unique perspectives on color. Phil Kenyon presented “Color harmony modeling, helping people pick colors that FEEL good” and fellow Washingtonian Mark Woodman talked about “World colors – Changing inspirations”.
Synchronicity shows itself to me yet again as Steven Bleicher steps up. Just last week I as contacted by Kelly Wheelis who teaches at the Art Institute of Phoenix and in our email volley she mentioned Steven, his book on color and said that he and I should meet. So today, Voila! Here he is in the same room with me. The universe sure didn’t wait long to give me that opportunity did it?
Unfortunately I had to leave before the end of the day but I was fortunate to have been able to stay long enough to hear Nancy Kwallek present “A multi-disciplinary model for teaching COLOR”. It was wonderful to learn that the University of Texas has a program where authorities from a diverse range of disciplines share about color.
The fact that color touches just about every aspect of life is exactly what I love about this field. It’s why I chose Views on Hues for the theme of this year’s CMG conference and why I have extended that into the videos I have started putting online. I love learning about how color is used in any field and one day hope to be able to spend more time just simply talking to people that use color in so many different ways.
Thanks to Jim Roberts of BYK-Gardner USA for inviting me to speak and to Cameron Miller of NIST and Carl Anderson of FHA, who co-chaired this event. It was very nicely put together and I’m happy I was part of your meeting and synposium.
