An Eye for Color - International Color Day


Yesterday was International Color Day.
International Color Day (started in 2008) promotes activities related to color and its perception. These can be arts exhibitions, contests on color and light design and workshops on the use of color.
The choice of the date was based on the spring equinox. They figured this was the best date because night and day are approximately equally long and this signifies the balance of light and darkness as expressed in all cultures.
source: Andy Basile - Insight 
My favorite color celebration is in India. It is called Holi. This is a spring festival (this year it was March 6, 2015), also known as the festival of colors or the festival of love.
 It is an ancient Hindu religious festival which has now become popular with non-Hindus.

The celebration involves colored dry powdered tints and also water filled balloons, water guns, and hoses. Everyone is splashed, spattered, and drenched in brilliant shades of every hue. The powdered pigments carpet the streets and eventually creates rivers of dyed liquid. The tints are traditionally made of natural plant and spice-derived sources like tumeric, neem, indigo, and beetroot and others. They are washable and non-permanent. 
This has to be, hands down, my favorite idea of a holiday...or holi-day.

Gardeners celebrate color day all year long! The patron saint, in my opinion, has to be the British garden designer, Gertrude Jekyll, (1843—1932) who popularized the notion of single color gardens as well as subtle color arrangements.



 Here is what she wrote in "A Gardener's Testament":


"It is extremely interesting to work out gardens in which some special colouring predominates, and to those who, by natural endowment or careful eye-cultivation, possess ....what artists understand by an eye for color ....
Add caption
... I have in my mind a whole series of gardens of restricted colouring, ...besides my small grey garden I badly want others, and especially a gold garden, a blue garden, and a green garden; though a number of these desires may easily be multiplied."
gold garden at Epcot Flower and Garden festival 2015 -Jan Johnsen

So in the spirit of colorful celebrations, I hope you plant a riot of color in your garden this year....It will stir the emotions and make the pollinators so happy!





Comments

  1. www.ravenscourtgardens. comMarch 22, 2015 at 2:03 PM

    This is a very uplifting post! Gertrude Jekyll is one of my heroes! I am sharing this : )

    ReplyDelete
  2. Pat WebsterMarch 23, 2015 at 12:12 PM

    The wonderful swirl of colour is missing its caption. I'd love to know where it came from. I'd also love to duplicate it in my own garden, or for some brave client!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jan JohnsenMarch 23, 2015 at 5:22 PM

      Hi Pat! I took the photo at the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival a few years back. It is currently running again - a fun display and they have it again! good luck with doing that!

      Delete
  3. AnonymousMarch 26, 2015 at 4:51 AM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete

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