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Charlotte Fairchild

Administrator, Fear Thou Not, 501(c)3

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Take back your world with color.

Color in furniture, clothing, walls, fences, art, textiles, hair, make-up, and light make a difference in our world. Joe v. The Volcano with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks showed how sick people look with bad lighting. Make-up in malls and stores is sold with the same kind of bad lighting. Going into a store and searching for a color is impossible in places for products but not in Thrift Stores. Home made items are also common in thrift stores. Can commerce learn from the colors in a Thrift store? There are reasons thrift stores are thriving. One reason is colors are more varied than anywhere new things are sold. In the book Authors of the Impossible, 3 men become writers so they can choose their script instead of letting the dictates of others choose their script. Bring in a flower to match the paint at the store, and do simple things to bring color into the life surrounding each of us.

Related Talks:
Topics: Paint color master of domain textiles
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  • Charlotte Fairchild

    • 0
    Apr 10 2013: A park in Georgia is rustic with no color in the winter months. Would it make a difference for there to be a red bench or some other color somewhere? The park is not cheerful

  • Charlotte Fairchild

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    Mar 31 2013: Color is said to change the atmosphere and attitude of a city in Algeria. Color can make a person think differently? Overcast days can be changed with bright colors. Uniforms are many times navy blue. Flash mob groups have put the same color combination clothing on as Best Buy, or maybe other stores to confuse the stores. Cars that are white or yellow can be seen at night more easily. Red cars are said to receive tickets more frequently for speeding. So to change one's world, what color changes are personal with people responding to this discussion? This year, as an example, I changed the shutters to Nantucket Blue from Williamsburg blue. I have bright pink benches by the door. I have gold spray paint, and some garden features have been spray painted neon yellow. White dishes were given to me, so now I have a different display for a time until I give them to someone or sell them. I bought flowers the colors that my Mom admired. I framed a colorful poster I printed. The colors I wear have not been addressed. Soon I will change that perhaps.

  • carolyn mcauley 10+

    • +1
    Mar 22 2013: COLOUR,is very inportant to those of us that design,yet not every group of human being, is actively in search of a colour high. This comment will only make sense to those whose live is in fact intertwined with how colour vibrates when in combination with each other. Those who are not sensitive to the above ,may unfortunately see the statement as "flakey". As one who enjoys this form of beauty I am constantly on the hunt for new combinations ans hues that are yeilded as a secondary effect of colours being adjacent to others in the light spectrum. This in fact may be a designer technique and on an intellectual websight your passion and mine may to catch their eyes

    • Charlotte Fairchild

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      Mar 23 2013: My father turned 86 this past week so I was out of town and spending time with him. He was at a church with all men for a fish fry and I was uncomfortable spending 3 hours with them with their topics. I spent 3 hours in a cemetery at dusk and night fall instead on the same block. This was an old cemetery with few living relatives who put flowers on graves from the church next door. As much art as the cemetery contained, there was little relief from the grey of the cemetery stones and the stains from what may be acid rain. It brought this conversation to life for me. Many cemeteries have bronze instead of stone, and many plants planted, and perhaps trees with color changes with the seasons. A cemetery is for the dead. The colors are for the living, including the grey of the masonry. George-Pierre Serat used circles of color often to make a larger scheme of patterns. Now I shall read what people have written!

  • Charles Curt

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    Mar 16 2013: what if we didn't care about color of benches and cities and just focused on improving life of the people in it?

  • gale kooser 20+

    • +1
    Mar 16 2013: If you find old nail kegs, they can be changed into benches too.

    • Charlotte Fairchild

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      Mar 23 2013: I saw in an out of date magazine today how some people put blocks of concrete on top of each other as night stands or temporary seating with stacked concrete. I may be quite satisfied with a plastic 5 gallon bucket upside down. I can get vivid colors by making my own covers for them, or getting something made, or looking. I would be satisfied with a plastic 5 gallon bucket.

  • Charles Curt

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    Mar 15 2013: where's the idea?

    • Charlotte Fairchild

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      Mar 16 2013: Color is an idea. Where? I could say Hiram, GA, although I will be in Dothan, Alabama this weekend. The idea is loose. Bring an idea about color to the forum if the color ideas you are reading isn't what you are interested in. So far a few ideas have been presented. White as an option. What if someone painted a city white? What if neighborhoods had sidewalks and benches? What if there were accents of color on shutters and benches and houses and yard art?

  • gale kooser 20+

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    Mar 15 2013: I happened upon metal bench parts at a yard sale (no wood attached). I spray painted the metal parts a dark green, added wood slats that I had stained & waterproofed a dark shade, added a few hand painted flowers & birds.
    It now sits at edge of my lawn too & school kids love to sit oh it. Had to also add a brightly painted trash can near by. You can imagine why.
    Having color anywhere in your life brightens it up & helps others too.

    • Charlotte Fairchild

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      Mar 16 2013: I did the same with bamboo and concrete. I cannot paint them yet. The bamboo has to cure. The green is pretty now.

  • gale kooser 20+

    • +1
    Mar 15 2013: Having proper lighting is necessary to show anything at their best and will also show the bad too.
    I remember my dad (yrs. ago) being tired of the same old white house, so he painted his home a deep forest green with white trim.
    He set off a fire storm in our area but after a few weeks everyone nearby were painting their white houses a different color. Blue, yellows, pinks, etc. The area looked like a rainbow gone nuts. I loved it.
    To this day, color plays a huge part in my life. I love deep toned wood and dress it up with colors of added items.
    Thrift stores use cheap lighting normally and I agree it is much better then what some stores use.

    • Charlotte Fairchild

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      Mar 15 2013: A friend's Mom painted her older house a deep green and had the same response. I didn't get a response after painting my shutters this time. 12 years ago neighbors were upset because I did change my shutter colors. The difference is no one comes out of their houses anymore! They are inside on their computers! I put a bench in the yard by the road, and hope one day someone will sit on it. Maybe if I painted the bench a bright color? The thrift stores I see put all the reds together, the blues together, and it isn't a hodgepodge of colors. The sizes aren't in any order!

  • Charlotte Fairchild

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    Mar 14 2013: All white is unusual, so it is successful. Hospitals used to be all white. Some museums are white inside. Refrigerators used to be white. Mailboxes in my neighborhood are white. Most new homes are painted white. Some people consider white a neutral and also a blank canvas. Vanna White and Barbara Streisand both had all white decors for a while.

  • greg dahlen 20+

    • +1
    Mar 14 2013: I always think stores look cool where everything is white, the walls, the shelves, the floor all white.

  • Charlotte Fairchild

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    Mar 14 2013: I was watching the movie "The Devil Wears Prada" and heard the character "Miranda" say that the color trickled down from a designer, and that is why the assistant was wearing the colors she wears. Some one I know keeps saying, "you still like blue" as though that is a bad thing.

    Changing the colors around makes what kind of difference? Can we improve anything besides a city with color on our own? How so?
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