Visual Language Exploration: Portrait Pink

If you find a photo of me, any time before I was like 12, I’m probably wearing mostly pink. I thought all little girls loved it, but apparently people actually remembered that I wore so much of it. Maybe it was my light blonde hair and pink hair accessories that went with my pink winter coat and my pink my little pony lunch box?

No matter, I was out of the pink phase for a very long time. I remember a few different color phases, like this pale frosty blue that went with shimmery makeup and lots of glitter. It reminded me of ice and magic and the sky. Or the bright yellow of my great grandma’s vintage sweaters phase. Oh, and black and I have such a relationship... We’ll dive into those depths another day, because as it is, I’m in love with pink all over again .

So this is where I’m starting the discussion on the exploration of my visual language - with pink.

Color theory was one of my favorite classes in art school, and then, when I was in graduate classes for art therapy, I got to study color a whole other way. While we all pretty much have favorite colors, or colors we don’t like, many people don’t give a lot of thought as to why. A funny thing is how parents are concerned when their kid likes black - but often times kids LOVE black because it’s bold and stands out. They’re not associating anything with it that their parents are.

There are universal associations to color, line, shape, etc., but there are also deeply personal ones, and our own languages are a web of both. It was incredibly interesting to me to look at these through the lens of an art therapist. I learned to see how color connects us as a whole, and defines us as individuals, helps us tell our story.

Here’s an interesting read on the history of pink - from how it switched from being traditionally a boys color to being associated with gayness because of labeling by the Nazi regime, and to being a calming or demeaning color used for control in prisons.

For me, I think I’ve reconnected to using the color pink so much in my work because of my associations with it as a color of sensitivity and vulnerability. It is a color connected to our bodies, scars, tissue, inner things. It is connected with my inner child as well, whom always wears pink, and with whom I am healing. As to whether or not pink is calming, it entirely depends on the shade and intensity. Portrait pink is calming for me, it’s deep enough that I find it grounding, connecting to my inner self within the world. It holds the warmth of bodies. It feels like breathing, slowly. It pairs well with a soft cream blanket, or my closet full of black. I think it connects me throughout my existence, grounding me in my experiences, a thread through time. Oh, and I also love it’s juxtaposition to red. I feel like it was a rule somewhere, that you weren’t to wear red and pink together. I guess it’s dangerous if you don’t know how to choose your reds and pinks? But there’s a boldness in that combination that establishes something solid. Let’s channel Molly Ringwald for a sec. You feeling it?

It makes perfect sense then that I’ve been painting so much with this in my color palette, because my work is so much about holding space and growth, which require vulnerability. The process requires acceptance and not judging what comes into the self and the work. It’s treated with a softness that says - this is just what is, and this is okay. I’m sitting across from a very visceral painting right now, where deep red womb-like shape drips with heaviness upon a field of pink. It acknowledges the heaviness, the bleeding, growth, pain, etc. all with acceptance. The field is soft, and it’s okay to be there.

I think we’re also having a cultural moment that is resonating with this color, as part of women’s rights advancements, and the collective energy of women coming forward, using their voices, and claiming space. Probably for a lot of the reasons I listed for my personal use of the color. There is a connection from the micro/within to the macro/external, and it’s color is portrait pink.