From Prince(s) to Pontiffs No color is more closely associated with royalty than the color purple. Cleopatra had 20,00 snails soak for ten days just to obtain a mere one ounce of the imperial shade. In 273AD, Roman Emperor Aurelian refused his wife a purple dyed shawl since it was literally worth it's weight in gold. In ancient Byzantium, wearing purple could cost you your head if you were not highborn. King Henry the 8th insisted that he was only person allowed to don p

Showing the layering process of dying with natural indigo. This image shows the saturation of a cloth from zero to ten dips. Blue Gold Indigo is considered to be "other worldly." It's the color of the fifth Chakra, the Third Eye, and associated with mysticism, intuition and understanding. Spiritualists believe that we mere mortals are incapable of seeing true indigo. In 1964, neurologist, Oliver Sacks, concocted himself a psychedelic cocktail (not to be recommended!) so tha

One doctor, after examining the gown of a fashionable London hostess, found 60 grams of the arsenic based dye per square yard... enough to kill 12 people! Killer Green Since I'm hosting an Intuitive Painting and Color workshop here in my home studio Sunday, March 24 with painter and musician, Vessna Scheff, I decided to have some fun and focus on color. With Saint Patty's Day right around the corner, this weeks obvious choice is the color green. There's so many associations

I honestly do not know if this dress is an original by Mariano Fortuny, but it's a splendid reproduction if it's not. I found it on a website advertising lamps. Seeing Red On Sunday, March 24, I'm hosting a Intuitive Painting and Color workshop here in my home studio with painter and musician, Vessna Scheff. (Event and link will be posted in a day or so), so for the next few weeks, I decided to focus on one of my favorite things.... COLOR!!! I decided to start with the colo

What is believed to be a portrait of George Washington's Chef, Hercules. "After a long day in president George Washington’s executive kitchen, chef Hercules hit the streets of Philadelphia with sartorial flair and a keen eye for late-18th century fashion. Atop his head, the enslaved cook wore a voguish tricorn hat. Bright metal buttons held together his blue velvet-collared coat, a pair of shiny buckles dominated his fastidiously polished shoes, and a long watch-chain dangle