My wife and I are trying to pick paint colors for our kitchen/family room. We like color, so white is not an option. Looking at the paint charts and thinking about this weekend’s show in the Poconos, reminds me why I have chosen to use a neutral color mat with my own prints.
Color is just too personal and too complicated a decision to try to get it right for any particular client. Two things in particular confirm for me my mat color choice. First, I like the Gallery White mat with most of my work because I like color in my work. I don’t want to compete with my prints by using a colorful mat. Second, I do think the frame choice can emphasize some color within the print and a colorful mat would only make frame choice more difficult.
Even the naming of mat colors (care of Crescent), and paint colors for that matter, is difficult. I choose Gallery White (great name for art anyway right?), but I could have chosen Bright White, Script White, Antique White, Moonlight, Alabaster, Palm Beach White, Very White, or Off White (their all off if you ask me). If I wanted to actually use a color, it gets worse.
Lets just look at greens for a moment as they would seem to work well with much of my imagery. I could choose from Micro Mint, Clearwater, Celery Seed, Serengeti, Gecki, Amazon, or my favorite - Grecian Olive!
How about some warmer tones? Here’s some good ones: Sunset Clay, French Jonquil, Naples Yellow, Napa Wine, Tandoori. I’ve never been to Naples, and I don’t know what a Jonquil or a Tandoori is. But I do like the names Really Red and True Red - sounds like a fight between two mat-color naming geeks.
It almost makes any discussion about mat color with a client impossible. Unless maybe if they ask for an inner mat of Really Red and an outer mat of Very White.
Paint chip names are even worse than mat color names. Here’s just a few from our Behr list that seemingly have no color meaning - Calming Retreat, Fall Mood, Day Spa, Nurture, Decadence, Comforting, Tranquil Retreat (different from Calming Retreat?), Quiet Moment, Refreshed, and my favorite - Wisdom!!. Frankly, I don’t see any wisdom in these naming games.
So if it were up to me, I think our Kitchen/Family room would be a multi-colored Retreat (both Calming and Tranquil), with a bit of Quiet Moment, Refreshed and yet with Decadence. Lastly, I would have to add to the kitchen area - Iced Expresso or Swiss Coffee. Maybe strips will work.
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