Color Stories
Disclaimer: While all of these stories are based on interviews with real people, some of the details and wording have been modified and dramatized.
My Own Journey With Color: "Color Grew Deeper"
I started this project out of my own love for color. Through my journey of discovering meaning behind color, from research to interviews and personal experience, I've learned just how much value I place on color. I choose everything from highlighters to board game tokens based on color. Certain colors are more significant to me than others.
Pink was undoubtedly my proclaimed favorite color for as long as I can remember. As I aged, though, my conception of the color "pink" became more sophisticated. I started seeing shades of pink, and grew to distinguish between shades I liked and disliked. To say pink is my favorite color would be both a true statement and an oversimplification. I love certain shades of pink. I love when pink mixes with orange like in a perfect California sunset. Coral, salmon, and peach are my favorite shades for makeup, for clothing, and for accent touches. Does that mean my favorite color is pink, or orange? I think I need to say it's a bit of both. I can't name my favorite colors without talking about specific shades anymore. My color knowledge has deepened too much. Simply "pink" no longer suffices.
In fact, there are shades of pink that turn me off completely. Darker, deeper shades that lean too much towards purple or red like magenta or fuchsia are not my cup of tea (or palette of paint, shall I say?). I can't stand the idea of being associated with those shades when people hear that I love the color pink.
Pastel, baby pink has phased out of my list of top colors over the years. In my wardrobe, I now lean much more towards peaches and even rusty oranges rather than pure pink. As I learn about more colors, I'm starting to realize that complex shades farther from primary colors are ones that intrigue me the most. I love mint green, a strange mix between green and blue. I love rose gold, a part of both the pink and metallic color families (people can't seem to agree on what exactly is rose gold: is it more pink? More gold? My preferred shade is a perfect balance of warm copper and peachy pink.) I like unique colors with names that not everyone can quite conjure off the tip of their tongue. I'm drawn to colors that may not have a one-word answer in the dictionary.
My possible answer as to why this might be is that I'm drawn to uniqueness in people. When I looked at the people that I'm close to, or people I admire, I realized I had a deep desire to connect with people whom I found unique and different from the world. I enjoy being friends with unconventional people. I think part of that desire is innately an envy, a desire to be as unique as those people that I admire so much. Maybe it stems from a belief that I'm not as unique as I would like to be. Or maybe it's part of my inherent value of being entertained by the people I spend time with.
"Color Impacts the Way I View People"
When I see someone wearing white, it makes me feel like they're bright, positive, and cheerful. That's the kind of person I strive to be. I think that's why I try to wear white so much. I own a lot of white things, too, like my car. I feel like a lot of people these days wear dark colors. So when I see someone wearing white, it stands out. It makes me want to be their friend.
Coming to college made me a more positive person. My good experiences with people made me want to become more positive myself. I want people to view me as someone happy and bright. That's why I love wearing white. It catches your attention, but in a good way. It's clean, it's simple, and it invokes positivity. When I see a positive person, it makes me want to invest in them more. And I want people to invest in me, too.
I never want to wear all black. I don't want people seeing me in a negative light. I equally don't gravitate towards people who wear black, either. It doesn't make them feel inviting or safe. I don't feel positive when I spend time with people who only wear black.
"I Used Color to Take A Stand For Myself"
I'm not afraid to be loud and proud. That's not always easy, though, when your'e surrounded by dull, self-conscious monotones and societal standards that tell me I can't be different.
n 7th grade, I had to wear a pink dress for a drama class. That day, someone called me a faggot. That didn't make me wear pink any less; on the contrary, I started wearing pink socks, pink cleats, anything to show that I wasn't going to be bothered by what people thought of me. That was the day pink became one of my favorite colors.
I think wearing bright shades of pink and purple make me feel more confident. People see me and know that's who I am, and I'm not afraid to be me. That's why I like incorporating my favorite colors in my personal items, things that I know I want to keep for ever. I want those things to have my signature, so everyone will know that they're "mine", and so I can never lose them.
"Color Was A Privilege I Couldn't Afford"
When I was in high school, I wanted to stand out from the sea of "typical Asians" that made up most of my surroundings. I didn't want to be labelled as just one of the many by wearing the same boring, basic colors as everyone else. I used color in fashion to make myself look and feel different from other Asians, and the prove that I didn't fit into the stereotype. My fashion became more and more outrageous. Because I had a lot of hand-me-downs, I had to get really creative with the things I had.
After coming to college, my style toned down a lot, but my views on color haven't changed. I do wear more neutral, easy-to-wear colors now. My focus has shifted from finding my identity in clothes to more substantial things. But I still think about colors in subjective ways: I much prefer light, natural colors to bright, artificial ones. A lot of my color preferences and associations came from inspirations by other people, or by circumstances in my life I couldn't choose.
Because our family never owned our house, I could never paint or change my room. Like my clothes, I needed to work with the colors I had, and try to make my room my own without a lot of freedom or money. Knowing that I can't always choose my own colors, I don't want to judge other people based on what they wear or own. I don't want to link people to their possessions. The ability to choose, even in something as trivial as color, really is a privilege that isn't afforded to everyone.
"Color Helps Me to Both Embrace and Subvert My Cultural Identity"
The color red symbolizes my Asian heritage. It's a color I'll wear proudly, but also to show I'm not like most Korean-Americans in my generation. I love displaying my culture and embracing it in my color choices. At the same time, it's not exactly a common thing for Korean elders at a church to wear bright red sneakers with their grey suits and ties while presiding. It's a bold statement, but it makes me feel like me.
I need to be okay with being different, because of my job: as a university professor and frequent conference speaker, there are many times when I need to go up onstage and talk about controversial topics to hundreds of strangers. I love my job, but in order to thrive in it I needed to become comfortable with being bold. Just as I can wear bright red shoes, I can also state my beliefs and discuss things that may make some people very uncomfortable.
For me, wearing red isn't a fashion statement. I don't consider myself "fashionable". Other than my bold red shoes, I wear boring, average colors like browns and greys. My choice to wear red shoes is more of a personal or social statement than a fashionable one. For me, those aren't quite the same thing.
"Color Made Me Recognize My Affinity With Minority Groups"
I never wore bright or flashy colors growing up. I stuck to dark, wearable, comfortable colors that wouldn't stand out too much. I don't like to wear colors that make me stand out. If I do, then I need to "hype myself" up for it so that I'm emotionally prepared for all the attention that color might get. I definitely don't want people to judge me for the colors I wear, or to think that I'm tacky or too out-there. Like my favorite colors, I want to be more subtle and under the radar in front of people.
In high school, nearly all my friends were ethnic minorities. I went to an international school as a biracial where a majority of kids were Asian. Because of that, I got lumped together with the white kids and didn't feel like I fit in with either group. I gravitated towards people who, like me, were minorities in my school.
In college, I've come to realize that most of my close friends are also ethnic minorities. I think I've grown comfortable with minorities in any setting; having once been one, I gravitate towards people in similar situations as me. I especially connect well with Asian Americans because in some ways they experience living in two cultures, too. Like me, they have two sides of them, Western and Asian, and clashing value systems at home with their parents.
The same way I love understated, subtle colors, and don't want to stand out by wearing bright, bold colors, I like blending in with a group that has similar experiences as me. I think being a minority for so long made me feel more comfortable being unseen. My color preferences for dark, unnoticeable shades seem to be associated with my history of feeling different from the crowd, and wanting to feel less like I'm under the spotlight.
"Color Triggers Deep Emotional Associations"
I have very strong color associations with certain emotions and feelings. I've always had an instant gravitation towards the color green. For me, green is a color that's earthy yet at the same time has a sense of out-of-worldly wistfulness. Maybe it's because I have so many childhood memories associate with green—Luke Skywalker's green lightsabers, the green tribe in Lego jungle Bionicle, the characters' shirts in Ranger's Apprentice.
Green symbolizes heroism. My experience in the army might also add to this meaning. Green makes me feel nostalgic of a time I haven't yet experienced. It represents both the old ways of nature, an ancientness of belonging, as well as a "new earth". It invokes an adventure we can only have in heaven, and gives us a glimpse of a world that should and will be.
Yellow, on the other hand, is a color that triggers anxiety for me. Not any shade of yellow—a deep, dark, mustard yellow. It's the color of mustard gas, and it twists my insides in the same way as the toxic chemical. After being in the army, I realized how much anxiety had a hold on me. It heightened my negative association with yellow. The color is a reminder of the prevalence of anxiety in my life. Just like the color, it's murky, it's muddy, and it penetrates my mind like a sharp knife.