Chapter 2. It's only natural.

OK so spend a second getting that Crowded House song out of your head…..

ready?

It’s Turquoise month!

Here at the MY studio we celebrate the world of changing colours month by month, focusing on particular hues in the colour wheel as they relate to the seasons.

Life giving fresh clean water brings annual renewal

I always see March as an invigorating time brought on by the warming of the seas, and the greening of the leaves.  This is why I identify early spring with Turquoise. Nature has a fairly predictable colour cycle which isn’t too hard to align, more or less to the colour wheel. SO, following on from that leap, I’m going to give my best shot at proposing a few ideas about how I see things lining up in nature, physics and culture,  and try now to relate it back to colour and why colour is just so damn splendid.

REAL democracy : The colour wheel knows no pecking order.

You see, I observe colour as a combination of two incredible sciences. Firstly there’s the miracle of physics ie: the established understanding of the laws of the universe, gravity, time, relativity, light, mass and force. 

The Universe is a really really big place, and pretty colourful, according to the artists that draw it….

The second is the wonder of biology, or nature, and all living things in their most splendid diversity and variety. So now, here is the really simple way of putting it without waffling on too much: basically the way I see it is that nature provides the colour, and we need the physics of light to be able to observe and appreciate it.  Hence, two sciences working hand in hand. 

Mr Gecko, one of natures many colourful triumphs.

Light through a prism reveals colours in light

Light through a prism reveals colours in light

I’m sure there are loads of other factors such as chemistry that one could argue for, but I quite literally know nothing about chemistry, and I can only hold your attention for so long, so I apologise if my argument is somewhat lacking in ALL of the facts. You know, I don’t think the absence of chemistry ever hurt anyone other than Anakin and Padme, so I’ll just go right along.

Both nature and physics are bound by rules of commonality. What I’m trying to say here is that we understand physics to be governed by an established set of constant laws and rules. Nature however while still quite ruley, is structured more cyclically, with the life cycle of most organisms tuned into the earth’s rotation and its annual journey around our star.  The variety of colours we see in our world we owe to this cyclical change, such as seasonal shifts, flowers in spring, autumnal tints and icy winters. There is an inherent constancy to nature, as these cycles are annual, and we all share the influences of our celestial machinations with beautiful, colourful consequence.

The beauty of colour in nature

Why is it then we struggle so hard to find commonality and consistency in our cultural existence on the earth?

I can’t help but reflect on the struggles we face in the world, and wonder if we looked at the beauty of what unites us we may find a greater peace.

For example, almost all countries on earth have some kind of cultural craft and textile tradition embedded into their identity. This is such a fantastic cultural commonality, as wondrous as our earth’s common biological evolutions across different species. If you looked at the various cultures and civilisations of ancient Persia, Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas and even the Australian indigenous peoples, they all used art, craft and textile to communicate their identity and as a way to share their stories.

Azerbaijan textile. Soon it will be Persian New year.

Peruvian Textile

The intertwining of lives, cultures and stories is really what Madrigal Yarns philosophy is all about. It’s about celebrating our common ground and beliefs. It’s about love and respect for all the world’s peoples, appreciating our similarities and our differences, and finding the common joy in our lives brought through beautiful, unrepentant, glorious colour.

New Madrigal Yarns colour “Shamrock” celebrating St Patrick’s day

The colour philosophy I use at Madrigal Yarns is to intertwine colours of a complementary nature to create a beautiful textured appearance, like the voices of Medieval Madrigal song or the wonderful intertwining of cultures, weaving and mingling to create a rich and textured world. This is my Interpretation. I hope you’ve enjoyed my little take on things.

Next time I’m going to talk about Persian new year and the equinox!

Thanks for reading

Eddie Knitster.