Pink is the Color of May

Lotus Blossom, acrylic and digital, KGT

Pink, is a fresh light color and is perfect for new life that is Spring. My daughter Katie was born in early May, brought home from the hospital in a little pink blanket. The trees out front were bursting with pink blossoms.

Spring in Boulder back then was sometimes a time of joyful expectation… college students finishing a long school year, people itching to plant a garden, then the unexpected snow storm, last of the year surprised us all. One year we had a tornado that tested the nerve of teachers who had taken their classes out to Cherryvale reservoir for the end of year picnic. We saw it from our front porch in North Boulder. Surprises come with Spring.

Now I live in New Mexico, praying for rain in the high desert where pink filled the sky last night at sundown. The colors of joy and promise for new life when we awake.

Abstract City with Pink, 5 x 7″ acrylic, KGT

I made this little city painting during a color palette study I called colors of Paris. It’s one of my favorite color combinations, and I tell myself I must make more art with it. Can color affect your moods like it does for me? If I paint a new image where pink is just a small accent color and the blues dominate, what mood will be conveyed then? (Now I really have to find this out.)

There is a reason people like to ask each other, “what is your favorite color?” There us usually a “why?” underneath the question. There are no right answers, but I always want to know. And answers do change, sometimes with the seasons. This is not just about what color people like to wear.

I once worked with a friend we called Miss Pink. She was an editor at the magazine I worked for and her editor’s pen was the pink ink. She wore the color of joy in her expression, always an underlying look of hope or expectation. I can still see her delightful face in my mind’s eye. She owned pink, every bit as Georgia O’Keefe owned her own mountain.

Pink, as with all color, is dependent on it’s surroundings. It can shine within dark settings. If May and it’s pinkness has brought a new hope into our lives, does that come from our surrounding circumstances or rather from a place of inner joy, of expected change for the better?

“Expect to have hope rekindled. Expect your prayers to be answered in wondrous ways. The dry seasons in life do not last. The spring rains will come again.”

-Sarah Ban Breathnach