It’s no surprise when my color palette sneaks from canvas to canvas. It happens quite often. When painting in blues, I gravitate from sea to sky for several images. Currently I’m in the greens. All colors are available all the time — one could be grabbed as easily as the next. But I think it’s because of what I see. After painting Margaux on the balcony of Marseille, the greens of bush and tree were everywhere. The light that changed this one green from yellow to nearly black, was called to me. Greeting me from the breakfast window, on to the morning path…everywhere a welcoming. You could say, “Well, sure, it’s France, it’s beautiful…” and yes, that’s true. But it’s not the first time I have been carried in this palette, lifted by this light.

My basement bedroom in Alexandria, Minnesota — yellow and green. It was the first time I got to choose my palette. From carpet to bedspread, that one windowed room gleamed bright with possibilities. I’m not sure it was even a year. The house was sold. The neighborhood got small in the rearview window of the small moving van. We left without bed or spread, but the color remained. It still does.

I suppose it’s always been about what you choose to see. Loss or opportunity. Pain or growth. Because within every palette of life’s journey there is the spectrum of color. The same green is lit bright, or shaded black. Knowing you can’t see one without the other. 

I can’t tell you what everyone sees. But I know it’s different. This is painfully clear from the daily news. From balcony to gravel, we all have a different view, a different perspective, a varying palette. But maybe the “them” and “us” of it all could be replaced with just different shades of green. And we could see each other, really see each other, as we navigate from color to color, sharing this palette, chasing the light.