Mud Brown

My color for the week.

The color brown gets a bad rep, who ever says brown is their favorite color? It is so often associated with "unpleasant" things, like rotting bananas, 70s interior design (brown and orange and pea green, gross), dying leaves, your child or dog on your clean white carpet/furniture, and you know what that comes out of you know where. Are these things truly unpleasant or are we just molded to think that way? Brown is natural and raw, it represents the end of biological cycles, of death that will be followed by life, and of freedom and youth.

Why doesn't anyone say brown is their favorite color, why is it so often under-appreciated?

"I cannot pretend to feel impartial about colors. I rejoice with the brilliant ones and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns." --Winston Churchill

Without brown how can you appreciate all the other colors we love so much. Would the green leave of the trees and plants *pop* as much in the Spring without the brown tree trunks and the brown soils beneath? Would we be able to acknowledge the brightness of these greens, pinks, reds, and purples without the "dullness" and contrast of the brown?

I chose mud brown as my color for the week because of the homesickness I have been feeling for Charleston and Awendaw and the familiar scents and scenes that I experienced for so many years of my life. Someone told me the cure to homesickness is to not have a home. Well I haven't called Charleston my "home" for a couple of years now, but it is still the place I can go back to and remember where I came from and how I got to where I am now.

Mud brown is the color of the Pluffmud (marsh mud for you unfortunate un-lowcountry people) that surrounds my dock and gives the Wando River its mirky color. It smells, and goo's, and oozes with life and biodiversity. Not a smell one would call pleasant in the sense of florals or freshly baked cookies, but a smell that is pleasant in its familiarity and its associated memories. A smell I would think compares to automobile exhaust for a cityboy/girl.

But back to it's color...Without it's brown, literally shit looking color, the green marsh grass and golden reeds would blend into the other colors of the scene. There would be no depth in the the marshy expanse along the river and there would be no distinction between sky and ground. The blues, and the greens, and the goldens would blend together like a Monet painting, beautiful and vibrant yes, but also blurry and unfocused.

My favorite characteristic of Pluffmud's color is the way the sky reflects on the little pools of water left in the creeks at low tide, as if the mud traps pieces of the sky on Earth. Early morning you have bold fresh blues, like the sky is brand new and the color hasn't faded in time.Mid day the sun reflects to form glowing pockets along the mud, and evening brings the reds and oranges and greens of the sunset.

http://www.sensationalcolor.com/color-messages-meanings/color-meaning-symbolism-psychology/all-about-the-color-brown.html