The Colour Orange

I don't mind terracotta too much; it is closer to red than anything else, and Persimmon isn't too bad. The rest of them give me the heebie-jeebies.

I don't think I can have artful thoughts in the presence of the colour orange.

I've used orange on occasion; everyone has used orange on occasion. But here's the thing: A friend convinced me to try a new platform and its basic colour is orange.

Blogger's icon is orange, but you can alter everything else to suit yourself. Not so with the new site. Almost nothing can be changed, most especially all that orange. That site  is in beta test, so perhaps they will add functionality later. For now, though, I have concluded that the new site works when I want to do a political rant, but I can't even think about an art-oriented topic when its ugly orange home page is on my screen.

The meaning of orange

I looked up the meaning of orange to see if I could determine why the artist in me detests it so.

Here's what I found, with commentary in italics:

It is a power colour. I don't want that sort of power when I'm involved in art. It's too heavy.

It is a healing colour. Shouldn't art heal? So why would I loathe it?

It is said to increase the craving for food. Uh oh. Stop right there.

It also stimulates enthusiasm and creativity. Well there you go; it does precisely the opposite for me. Indeed, I would run and hide--or go nuts--if someone put me in an orange room.

All the information about orange above was found on Emily Gems website.

None of that information gave me a clue; if anything, it indicated I was far outside the norm in my reaction to orange. So I kept looking.

The colormatters website noted that:

"Orange is symbolic of autumn.

"Children all over the world are drawn to orange.

"Orange is the color (sic) of life rafts, hazard cones, and high visibility police vests."

I've never liked autumn. When I lived in New  York City, I loathed it so much, my husband decided that to save our sanity, we had to go to Key West--endless summer--for most of November. When we got back, it would be winter, and I don't mind winter.

I'm not a big "kid" person, either; I mean, they're fine--I've taught them in fact--but I don't go all gushy over them.

Somehow, visions of life rafts, hazard cones and police vests do not bring out the artist in me. Go figure.

But at least I was getting somewhere in understanding my antipathy to orange.

Locked in in orange, or locked out--depending

There were, on the same site, two more suggestions as to why orange does not appeal to me. First, it is the colour of prison uniforms in the United States. I used to be a citizen of the United States...you know, that nation that has a greater percentage of its population incarcerated than any other nation, including China with four times the US population and a reputation for being fairly miserable to its citizens. So perhaps that is an influence. Except that I've always disliked orange, and until recent times, US prison uniforms were usually gray.

Orange also stands for the Northern Irish Protestants; I am a citizen of the Republic of Ireland, and I frankly think Ian Paisley is a vicious, ignorant demon. So perhaps that has something to do with it. But as noted, I've never liked orange, and although we studied The Troubles in school in the United States, I think my dislike of the color predates that.

On the other hand, I completely adore freshly squeezed orange juice and squeeze oranges every single day when they're in season. I won't even buy bottled or frozen stuff; it's not orange juice. It's some sort of flavoured acid with bits in it. Ick. During non-orange season, my breakfast juice of choice is apple with elderflower.

I can come to no reasonable conclusions. I just don't like orange, and it completely freezes my muse. Completely. So I guess Blogger, which subjects me to only a tiny bit of orange, is stuck with me.

I did put up an art blog on the new site on Wednesday, and it got a lot more readers than it does on Blogger. But heck, I own the work, so maybe the answer is to write it here and re-post it on the new site, covering my eyes as I do so.