My drug of choice......

in today's world, that statement has a very negative implication. I am, however, quite happy to tell you about my drug of choice..,,it's color. It has been my drug of choice for a very long time. I don't think I stand alone in my choice. I suspect there are many, many quilters, who, when thinking about it,

would answer the same .

Color is so much more than 'just' color. It has a life, movement, suspense, a pupose for being. I'll explain a little, from where I stand. Color speaks to me, it calls my name and lures me out of my hidden places and into a field of sunlight and breeze, of clouds drifting along and birds singing.

Once I'm there, which is often, I am free to 'see' and use and slurp up as much color as I can hold.

Color has always been a part of my life. But my imagionation was busy with other things, like growing up as wild and free as I could manage. I had burning leaf piles to absorb, and snow flakes on my tongue, shadows that the setting sun makes, so different than the shadows on a snowy day. The song of the birds, and the whistle of the steam engines pulling their load of freight past my house. How I loved those steam engine whistles. And how I missed them after the last steam engine lead the brand new "400" into and through Chippewa Falls, that fateful day in the 1950's. But enough about that....I've got color on my mind today. And what it means to me.

We are in a 'holding' pattern right now...winter is on it's death bed, even with it's snow pile pillows piled high, very soon the sun will have it's way and destroy the snow. It will warm the frozen ground, and grass so green it hurts your eyes, will grow instead. With my memory banks nearly full...color dominates my life.

Color is more than just what your eyes see. But sight is the beginning of measure.

Yellow, brillant and warm as daffodils always makes me happy. Red, pulling you towards it, you feel the heat of it's passion, it's intensity, it's strength and you sense(but don't see) how strong and wild it can be. Blue, a mother's touch, peaceful, like the sky or a field of bluebells, it's dependable. Green, for me it soothes, invites me to lay down and have a think, or maybe dream. Green has strengh, almost as much as red, but it has a nervous energy lying beneath, that gets you up and moving again. Green is like motion. Brown, such a earthy color, dependable, grounded, gentlly treating the colors around it with reverance. Enhancing them, leading them on. Black...well, black is like an adjative to me.

It seems to describe what other colors are. How could the stars sparkle so brightly without the proper shade of black to accent them. Or maybe black is like an exclaimation point in nature, making sure you don't miss seeing something. White undulates like warm, melted marshmellow, sliding across areas, allowing other things to be highlighted and change.

Turquoise, teal and aqua are for swimming in. You can dive into them and float along or madly flail about....a liquid color, always. No stopping teal or turquoise except with purple or orange....*VBS* Purple is yummy, and can be so many things at any given time. It anchors but also assists, you can lean on purple. Now magenta is a whole another story...*S* Magenta flows like a river. It picks things up and carries them along. It can take as many forms as a river, frozen at times, bubbling up and outrageous at others.

Orange is everybodys friend. About the only color it doesn't get along with is pink. But if the pink is wild enough, outrageous enough, well then,they go together just fine! If you think of the other colors for a moment, you realize there isn't really any one of them that you haven't seen orange interacting with.

Peek into your crayon or paint box, your thead drawer or fabric stash, and colored paper works well too. What do you see?????? Are you happily addicted to color???