The Power of Color

I've been writing about texture and design lately. This past week, I was also thinking about the significance of color.

Working in the visual arts, I am keenly aware of the impact that color has on my moods, my state of mind.

I was recently reading Lee Eiseman's blog (Pantone's color guru), and found this interesting exercise involving color to help reduce stress, and even the pain of more serious illness. With the unemployment rate now over 10% (just reading that in the Times today stressed me out), its hard not feel some measure of anxiety these days - and we might use our enjoyment of the power of color to take things down a notch.

Try this out when it looks like stress and anxiety are threatening to take over your day (or week):

Find a quiet place where you can close your eyes for 10 minutes. Then, breath slowly and deeply into the belly while focusing attention about two inches below the belly button. Be sure to exhale deeply and completely. Ask yourself about your stress, your discomfort:

What color is it?

What shape is it?

How heavy is it?

Take another deep breath and ask yourself those questions again.

Dark, sharp, and heavy is often how we will experience stress. By repeating this breathing exercise, and the questions, we can often begin to imagine the answers changing to "light in color, round in shape, light in weight". By imagining lighter colors - or colors that we associated more with calmness (such as blue) or love (such as pink) we can actually let go of the stress and find ourselves in a more calm, relaxed, optimistic mood.

Now that's a much better way to start off the week, isn't it?

Paintings by Melissa Moss, the artist who introduced me to Lee Eiseman's work on color psychology.

Melissa's paintings are shown in galleries throughout the country; her work is also reproduced as prints and pillows and sold through Urban Outfitters.

Gladness, top.

Isn't it Beautiful?, bottom.