"All colors are the friends of their neighbors and the lovers of their opposites." - Marc Chagall

Decorus Beigitus
A customer wrote to us a while back, asking for some decorating ideas. "Diana" was considering some accent pieces for her home. Something was wrong with the rooms, she told me, but she couldn't put her finger on what was missing, although one glance at the first photo told me that the missing element was color. She sent me photos of her kitchen and living room, asking for ideas. "I just love the artwork you have available," she told me on the phone, "but I am not sure how to incorporate it in my home." The rooms in the photos were very elegant: rich marble countertops, parquet floors shined to a glass-perfect finish, couches in which one could dive into and never surface, a rococo glass and mahogany coffee table that looked like it had been intricately carved by hand by someone who had clearly been carving wood since embryonic stages. Silk throw pillows with delicate, subtle embroidery. (The thick, plush carpeting, off-white, was so beautiful I'd be afraid to even breathe on it; since I am always dropping things I'd have to fly around her house without ever lighting anywhere.) A beige chenille throw was artfully tossed across an easy chair that looked big enough to fit two comfortably. I won't even get into her magnificent floor-to-ceiling windows, capturing mallards outside floating gently on an impossibly aqua lake. The lake was the only color in the scene. The room was perfect. And lifeless. "How about an accent color?" I suggested. "A color you love, a powerful color, that we can use in small touches throughout the house. You can be bold, because it will be in touches, and practically anything you choose will work with your whites, creams and beiges." She started to tell me she did that already, as she had brown specks mixed in with her off-white marble counter, as well as a Chippendale chair with a brownish-burgundy cushion. When I mentioned vermilion and aqua, I thought she'd hung up on me, her pause was that lengthy. "I don't know..." she finally said, haltingly. I asked her what pieces of mine she particularly liked, and she quickly rattled off about six or seven. All of these images were boldly colored, with lots of bright, rich reds, oranges, pinks, yellows, golds. These were the colors and combinations she was drawn to, but she was afraid to bring them, these colors she loved, into her home.

She's not alone. The fact is, many people are afraid to bring color into their personal space. I truly don't think it's because people don't love color, because we are all naturally and viscerally drawn to color. Color uplifts, it heals, it delights, it impacts mood and even behavior. (Ever hear about the prison walls painted pink or the fast food places painted orange, yellow and red? The prison studies illustrated that inmates were calmer when living within pink walls, and fast food places learned that the discordant color combination forced people to eat and run. That's why most fast food places are painted in this combination.) I believe one day we will learn how powerful color really is, and use it for healing, in the form of light. Laugh if you want to, but someday, when you're being scanned by that lavender light machine to get rid of your arthritis, you'll think of me. Science is beginning to embrace the truths us color fanatics already know: color is very, very powerful. We're only beginning to scratch the surface in learning just how powerful.

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