Why Color?
Mallory MacDonald shares an additional “why” behind our series on color rooted in childhood dreams and trips to both Kmart’s paint department and Morocco.
As a child, my most frequent recurring dream was being in rooms where everything was black and white. The shape of the room was always different, and often an odd shape, like a stretched diamond or a hexagon, or a tall and skinny space.
The walls were often all white, or black-and-white checked. And there was either an object or a person or two in the room, usually wearing all-white or all-black.
I couldn’t find any imagery that matched my dreams, but this is a subtle reference to it…
The floor would move, or a tile from the floor would pop up! It was a dynamic space, and felt a little like living in the midst of a 3-D geometric art piece. I haven’t experienced one of these dreams in over 20 years, but the visual memory of them remains vivid to this day, even more so than my dreams from last week.
Image by Andrew Ritchie
In middle and high school, one of my favorite things to do was go to Kmart with my friend Becky, and shop the Martha Stewart home goods section. I would bring home the free catalogs and pore over the pages like my peers would pore over Cosmo or Teen Vogue. The most interesting things to me in those little catalogs showcased how Martha approached color. I distinctly recall seeing a particular color palette that was a combination of cooler greens alongside warmer sages. It was like nothing I had seen before, but subtle too, and so gorgeous. Whenever my mom needed to go to Kmart, I would ask to tag along so I could visit the paint section where I continued to collect color samples. A bit of a sign that I was on an artist’s path, I guess.
In grad school, when it came time to determine what topic my thesis would cover, I felt stuck. Not because I had too few interests and ideas—I had too many.
My program at King’s College London, Cultural & Creative Industries, encouraged a broad range of topics, which didn’t help! Its fusion of study across cultural institutions, the art of business, and the business of art inspired my thought process.
I considered going deeper with the topic of my first research proposal, born from witnessing part of the terrorist attack on Westminster, exploring how moments of trauma impact a city, culture, or nation. How the stories surrounding the event get embedded in the cultural memory and memorialized long-term.
Another idea was to study various office settings and workspaces to uncover how environments affect folks in the creative industries, and determine if there existed any common themes—elements, layouts, or colors—that worked better than others.
The idea that ultimately won out was an to exploration of the business practices of traditional artisans in Morocco, and when I considered that against the other ideas, it eventually stood out as the winner, because in addition to my curiosity about the topic at hand,
I was excited to capture the richness of those artisans, those settings, and the color that fills them…
Images from the Medina in Fez Morocco by Mallory MacDonald
I have long been so drawn to color—or the absence of it as in my childhood dreams—in all of its various forms, and the plethora of ways it impacts us. As I began to formalize my first Maxwell newsletter all about color, once again my ideas overflowed and became instead this blog post and so many others to come. So, here begins the COLOR STUDY, an ongoing exploration of color I want to share with you. Drop us a line if you want have a colorful idea or want to be a contributor!
—Mallory MacDonald, Founder of Maxwell Creative
Mallory is known for her big ideas, but is now revealing her lifelong obsession with color. Her penchant for a neutral palette sets the foundation for the colorful characters she attracts to her forest house on Vashon Island.
