Color me

Arrangement by me. Mother Nature helped.

Well, the ceaseless rain took a brief break on Wednesday here in Pittsburgh, so I went for a walk.

April's breezes have been scattering blossom petals and young leaves all over the place.

I picked up these maple seedlings and baby leaves on my stroll. The deep rose red and bright pistachio green are one of the best color combinations in nature. (Complementary on the color wheel.) 

I don't know why this pairing speaks to me, especially because my birthstone is amethyst and I love all things purple.

Here's the thing, though. I love purple with green. I love walnut brown with green. And blue is not my favorite color (except for denim, it will never hang over my bones) but I love it with green.

And I'm not talking about Kelly green. I'm talking cool limes, pale spring leaves and the glaucous shades of evergreens.

It's been years since I took a class in color theory, but what I remember is that I liked the gradations, the hints of what happens when you mix a bit. Talented artists do this mixing all the time to great effect and with more art education than me.

I just pick it up on the street. 😊

(Update: April's showers are more than living up to their name. The drenching has resumed.) 😞

Jaipur, Rajasthan, Day Six

Hot.
We had buffet-style breakfast on the roof of the hotel under a billowing, bright yellow canopy. There was a little bit of a breeze occasionally, but not enough to entice me to have anything hot to drink. I made myself some tea, but could only manage a couple sips. Kim made a request of one of the staff behind the buffet and I saw a reaction that I've been seeing a lot here. The head waggle.

I'm not sure what to make of it. Does it mean I'll do this even though I don't want to? Does it mean I've told you all I know? There's never a smile with it and it has the sense of being a grudging response. The waggler's head goes left-right-left. Seth Stevenson wrote about it in a series  he did for Slate magazine in 2004, "Trying really hard to like India." Great reading; a coworker forwarded it to me before I left. His description of it as a bobble-head doll motion is absolutely dead-on.

After breakfast, we all piled into cars for a visit to the City Palace, the Jaipur residence of the descendants of Raja Man Singh I, the giant. I got an audio with with my foreigner's entrance ticket, plus and extra set of headphones. Leilah used them sporadically. Deepa got an audio tour, too, and we were off. As a foreigner, I also did not have to pay an extra photography fee (they've got the fee thing down here in India) but I was out of gas on taking pictures of buildings. Photography inside was not allowed, possibly because flash could damage the artifacts, but truthfully, the armour and weapons collection, though extensive, was dull-looking as if no restoration of the metals had ever been done. A display of chain mail on a mannequin was dusty and worn. In the display of textiles, some of the gold threading on a beautiful, rust-colored wedding gown for a maharana was peeling out of the fabric. Some of the other textiles were in better shape and, to be fair, those are not easy to preserve.

We didn't stay too long. Kim and Deepa wanted to get the kids back to the hotel so they could have a swim before we checked out, so they went back in one car with the nannies in Deepa's car and Suresh drove us to a place called the Rajasthan Cottage Emporium for some shopping. As we waited in the the City Palace lot for Suresh to pay the parking, a pig-tailed little girl in a dirty yellow dress approached the car on Deepa's side in the back seat. Something about her face was not right; she had a blank smile showing some teeth missing. Her eyes were set far apart and one appeared to be wandering. She had some bit of something in her hands that she appeared to be eating. She banged on the window, made the mouth-to-stomach gesture, and, though you aren't supposed to give to beggars (you won't get rid of them that way, or more will show up, or both) Deepa relented, rolled down her window, gave the girl a trail mix bar and rolled the window back up.

Response? The girl banged on the window for more. "Tell her you'll take it away from," Kim ordered and sure enough, when Deepa did that, the little girl wandered back to where she had been sitting. From the back, I could see she had a plum-sized red lump growing at the base of her skull. Multiply that little girl by a few million, plus or minus the deformities, and you get an idea of the enormous human problems facing India.

Cottage Emporium is a three-story building that leases space to vendors from Rajasthan. There is one in Delhi, too, with all the states of India represented. I had in mind to buy some jewelry while I was here, but, boy, the shopping mood was not with me, at least for something that would require the decision-making involved in designing a custom piece for myself on the spot. I did buy some pillow covers, a few scarves and beaded boxes. Most will go for gifts.

One of the other things I've seen here, by reason of being with Kim, is racism. On the second floor, two of the vendors saw Kim and began whispering and nodding. She strode over to them: "Do you know who the President of the United States is? Do you know?" One of them finally stuttered out Obama. "That's right! And do you know where I'm from?" One guessed Africa, because "there had been some Africans in here before."

"Do you think you could guess where my friend here is from by the color of her skin? Italy? Spain? France? So why would you make a judgment about me based on the color of my skin?!" The were cowed.

According to Kim, a common reaction among Indians to her skin color is to laugh. Whether that response reflects racism, ignorance, some twisted form or classism or all three, isn't clear. But it certainly isn't pleasant.

After we were done shopping, Suresh drove us back to the hotel. We packed up, checked out, found someplace to eat and got on the road around 4 or 5. Before we even got out of Jaipur, a cop pulled us over because Suresh ran a red light. (People actually do stop for traffic lights.)

He then directed us to pull out of the way of traffic, to a spot in front of some shops. It took about 15 minutes to clear this up and while we were waiting, another cop came by and eyeballed the car. As soon as Suresh got in and started up, this guy shows up and tells us we are in a no parking zone. No matter the the first cop told us to park there. Suresh and Deepa tried explaining but this guy wasn't having any of it.

Suresh had to get back out of the car, pull out his driver's license and give it to the cop. More arguing ensued and finally Suresh came back around to the front. Deepa pulled out a bill and gave it to him. For 50 rupees, Suresh got his license back and we were on our way. That's equal to $1. We had to pay a $1 bribe to be on our way. Why even bother with the pretext of upholding the law? For this cop, it was just an opportunity to squeeze some small fish.

It was still daylight for a few hours of our drive. Rajasthan, despite the trash, the mini-slums, the garish road-side refreshment stands, is beautiful, if forbidding, with its nearly treeless landscape and scrub-covered hills. The colors the women, and even some men, wear here are almost as blinding as the sun. My photography does not do these colors justice, but I've posted one at the top of this entry.

Colors

We've been in a deep freeze for the past couple of weeks here in Western Pennsylvania, with temperatures in the single digits up  to the teens and low twenties. The good news is that the days are getting longer. The late day light has a longer slant and tonight -- I got  home around 5:14 -- the dogs and I were able to take our evening walk in dusky light. As we came back down the street out of the park, the sunset was fading from cool slate to clear gold to brilliant coral on the horizon. The horned owl hooted above us in the park, then flapped away to a distant tree.

Color has been a lot on my mind lately. My living room is painted a deep Oriental red and decorated with various framed paintings of birds, mostly cranes, that I've inherited. Over my fireplace is a screen depicting a stand of bamboo and a lone sparrow done in black on gold that my dad's mother bought in Japan in the 1960s on a round-the-world tour with the Congressional Secretaries Club. I love the red and have been trying to figure out good complementary colors for the adjacent dining room, which is small and houses a Mid-Century Modern teak dining table (minus its two leaves) and chairs. The set was purchased by my parents at a PX in France when we were stationed there in the 1960s. The chairs originally had seats covered in a nubby cool chartreuse wool, with tiny flecks of brown and flax. They're presently covered in deep teal and the two captain's chairs in deep lavender. My choices. I thought they were good at the time, but I now want to get back to the warm smoky chocolate and cool chartreuse/lime green scheme. The room will be painted in the warmer deep smoky brown below the chair rail and a pale smoke above with the chairs in a kind of warm-ish chartreuse. Hmmm... Sounds almost too 70s. But they will fit nicely with the red of the living room and the celadon planters I have there. I could also do them in a nubby wheat fabric as well. 

Colors. Speaking of, the NYT had an article today about the Obamas and redecorating the White House, specifically focusing on the re-dos that Jackie Kennedy implemented with the help of favored designers.

The article is here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/21/opinion/21needleman.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

I remember seeing, not live on tape but many years later, Jackie's televised tour through the updated White House. I don't get the sense that Michelle Obama is that kind of behind the scenes person-- personality and the times. But, about six or seven years ago, my Mom and sisters Elizabeth and Mary drove down to D.C. from Pittsburgh for an exhibit of dresses Jackie wore as first lady, for trips she took, and for parties she planned. She looked fabulous no matter the occasion but the memory I carried away was the huge reproduced photo of the gathering of Nobel Prize winners that the Kennedys sponsored at the White House during JFK's first term. Brains and style on display. This was in the Dubya's first term and was particularly poignant because it had become so clear by then that brains, discourse, engagement and humor were among the least of the 43rd president's interests.
Well. We now have a president -- I was going to say leader, but I truly do not believe George W. Bush was a leader -- of a different color. Good luck Mr. Obama. You will need it, but I don't think you will wait for it.

Turning 180 degrees... or even further...
I am going to India in March to visit a friend and former co-worker. Never would have picked Indi on my own, but its a hard invitation to turn down. Kim, my lovely friend, has been posted in all kinds of places because of her husband's work and I am happy that she has offered to be a tour guide for a week.