Red is showing up everywhere lately. Last week, we saw what we assume were two male red-headed woodpeckers in hot dispute over a flirty female, and yesterday the high canopy was filled with scarlet tanagers, again mostly males. There few sights sadder than desperate unmated males in spring; sit outside any high school if you don't believe me. I saw the female tanagers but didn't at first identify them as wives, for the males' colours drowned the dear dowdies out. (One of my favourite lines from a forgotten novel: "The archbishop's wife was a pale penumbra of the archbishop.") And tonight the cardinal who sang from a high bare branch caught and magnified the setting sun. Resplendent fellow. Males look great in red, as all Canadians know.
This wee house also sang out like a beacon high within Gros Morne. I took the shot, enchanted by the colour and the scale, but later when I appraised the digital I realized that the house called for cadmium red medium, a very specific colour. What to do? I make it my business to avoid heavy metals like the cadmiums, lead whites and cobalts, good practise if you don't want to end up stark raving mad like so many famous painters. (Less successfully, I also try to avoid stirring my coffee with my brush -- I've got it down to just once or twice a week) But I wanted that colour to sing, so I started with white and then glazed multiple times with alizarin and transparent yellow. I think it's right, because my eye is irresistibly drawn to that glorious pop of true red.
You would think, then, that red clothing would inherit that cachet but, perhaps because I am a woman, I have absolutely no luck with that colour, especially in shoes. One dark winter morning on my way to university, arms filled with books, I found myself limping badly. I paid just enough attention to it to think, "Good grief, now one leg is shorter than the other. Oh, well, I'll deal with that after I deliver my seminar paper." As I clumped up to the second floor, my boyfriend took one look at me and said, "Z'Anne, why are you wearing one black flat and one red high heel?" I should have sworn off red shoes then and there but inexplicably chose to wear them when visiting Germany shortly after; an awful lot of men gave me a funny look . All women know that look. Finally someone took pity on me and explained that red high heels (including my red high heels) sent a specific and, in my case, unintentional signal. Perhaps a man wearing red high heels would have been perceived as dominant and independent rather than available for rental. Red works for Mounties. I gave away the shoes.
But you can't banish something so cheery forever and last year I bought another pair of red high heels. And I would have worn them this week, had there been two of them. Either my left red shoe has left for Germany, or it has joined the sterling flatware I hid fifteen years ago in The Land of the Missing. And I do miss them both. If you see them, please give them the message that all is forgiven.
This wee house also sang out like a beacon high within Gros Morne. I took the shot, enchanted by the colour and the scale, but later when I appraised the digital I realized that the house called for cadmium red medium, a very specific colour. What to do? I make it my business to avoid heavy metals like the cadmiums, lead whites and cobalts, good practise if you don't want to end up stark raving mad like so many famous painters. (Less successfully, I also try to avoid stirring my coffee with my brush -- I've got it down to just once or twice a week) But I wanted that colour to sing, so I started with white and then glazed multiple times with alizarin and transparent yellow. I think it's right, because my eye is irresistibly drawn to that glorious pop of true red.
You would think, then, that red clothing would inherit that cachet but, perhaps because I am a woman, I have absolutely no luck with that colour, especially in shoes. One dark winter morning on my way to university, arms filled with books, I found myself limping badly. I paid just enough attention to it to think, "Good grief, now one leg is shorter than the other. Oh, well, I'll deal with that after I deliver my seminar paper." As I clumped up to the second floor, my boyfriend took one look at me and said, "Z'Anne, why are you wearing one black flat and one red high heel?" I should have sworn off red shoes then and there but inexplicably chose to wear them when visiting Germany shortly after; an awful lot of men gave me a funny look . All women know that look. Finally someone took pity on me and explained that red high heels (including my red high heels) sent a specific and, in my case, unintentional signal. Perhaps a man wearing red high heels would have been perceived as dominant and independent rather than available for rental. Red works for Mounties. I gave away the shoes.
But you can't banish something so cheery forever and last year I bought another pair of red high heels. And I would have worn them this week, had there been two of them. Either my left red shoe has left for Germany, or it has joined the sterling flatware I hid fifteen years ago in The Land of the Missing. And I do miss them both. If you see them, please give them the message that all is forgiven.
RSS Feed
