Reflection: Final Project

Because I am interested in digital/online media and publishing options, I wanted to find a dynamic way to present my final 13 meditations that leverages an electronic medium as a resource. Blogs, as they have been colloquially known for years, are the Web’s logs, or self-published “books.” The ease of self-publishing coupled with the cost (nothing, in most cases, depending on the service you use) makes it the most democratic, equal-opportunity option for writers everywhere.

Blogs are also the easiest way to distribute your musings to the masses. Whether or not the masses want to partake of your offering is another matter altogether.

I am very familiar with this way of “making a book” and I wanted to return to a safe, comfortable way to express my ideas, so the process of meditating on Brown could be the point and the place where I focused all of my energy. I didn’t want to compound the process by having to contend with the physicality of the house for my idea—or the bound book.

The first thing I did was to find the grounding image for the “Little Brown Book” blog—a sepia toned homage to literary antiquity. Then I used the question “What does Brown sound like?” to find music that evoked the essence of the colour. As you’ll note, I used the literal and figurative as inspiration for the selections I chose.

Because of the nature of my book, I was able to add actual sound—one element of the very dynamism I was after.

I could not find a free download of the one song, the title of which serves as the title of the blog, so I found , instead, an exciting video presentation that uses the song. I was able to embed that video as a post and in that way, have been able to make it stand out more than if it were simply part of the streaming playlist.

Because I was so comfortable with the medium, I had leftover energy to find solutions to little problems like this one. In this instance, comfort meant liberty. I felt free to meditate by way of quick snippets or longer posts and short stories.

Using some combination of the museum photos I took, other images I already had, and “found” images from walks around my neighborhood, I was able to settle on the photos upon which I wanted to meditate in an intuitive way.

I was also able to embed, via 3rd-party functionality, another stream of photos. In this way, the photos could be included on the periphery without junking up the meditations. I worked to consider the layout of the blog and the flow of the elements and how they worked in concert.

What I learned, or what was confirmed for me, is that creativity is cumulative. Following one trail led to more trails to follow. The final project is streamlined and clean. It’s simple and entirely representative of what I saw in my head before it began.

the sound of brown

John Coltrane, My Little Brown Book, 1962

When meditating on the question "What does Brown sound like?" I came time and again to this song. It meanders, swells, and loops. The artist Defetto perfectly captures the essence of the song and of the colour. What does Brown sound like? It sounds like "My Little Brown Book," only as played by 'Trane, though.
my little brown book from defetto on Vimeo.

Here are Duke Ellington's Lyrics:

My little brown book
With the silver binding
How it keeps reminding me
Of a memory
That's haunting me.
In some quiet nook
I go through its pages
And peruse this ageless tale
Of a love that failed
To ever become true.
On this page is the date
Of that fateful night at eight
When I found you were no longer in love.
After that there's nothing more
Just a dark and futile door
That shuts out the stars above.
In my little book I inscribed your heart vow
But since we're apart now
This and that last sweet kiss
Is all that's left of you
Is all that's left of you.

Reflecting on Brown

Finding brown was not difficult. It’s in almost every painting or rendered piece; it’s simply unremarkable in most instances. My task was to find the pieces that were most evocative or revelatory. More often than not, brown is used as an anchor—as a means of grounding images and emotions. It is there to give other colours a foundation. Less severe than black, it can serve to round out a scene or temper ostentatious displays of luxury.

It works to convey despair, modesty, wealth, and poverty. It is rare to find it leveraged for its own merit. Brown is ubiquitous because it has few if any clichéd connotations. Sure, it’s the colour of chocolate, of coffee, and cherry wood, but it hasn’t become symbolic of any one message or idea.

Brown is the baseline in a song—unnoticed because of the melody, but absolutely crucial to the architecture of the piece.

Brown builds, adheres, and warms.

I followed it all over the museum, in and out of rooms—finding the suggestion of it even where it wasn’t. In the deep spaces of burgundy and the dun center of amber.

Whenever there was a pairing of brown with another colour, more often than not, it was blue. The match is an intuitive one, it seems. The more I see them together, the more it seems to me that one begs the presence of the other.Finding brown out on the street was not as easy. There is more brown now than ever before (it’s in vogue, especially when paired with robin’s egg blue and other, warmer blues), but just walking on the street, it was largely unsung—until I ran smack dab into it.

I was open to brown; I really wanted to find it wherever I could. However wan the instance, I was willing to accept it, and then I found such a kinesthetic example. I almost rejected it because I didn’t want to bother the workman, but I thought better of such foolish propriety. The spirit of the humanifesto subpoint “keep on moving,” served me well. I didn’t linger too long with any one instance of brown. I expected it to reveal itself more, but I didn’t feel that old prohibitive insistence.

I was working soft, not hard. I kept thinking of art first. When the colour assignment was given, I didn’t fight the pull toward brown, even though I worried that I might get more mileage from another colour.

It was all around me.

#1

I began the search for Brown in the Egyptian art wing. This relief is not brown, per se, but the bronze evokes the same warmth--not the burning warmth of red or yellow--but the warmth of fullness.

#2

the brown in each of these twin frames is limited to the woman's hair (and was perhaps mixed with white to make the mountains in the painting on the left) and added in small amounts to her skin to further identify her as Middle Eastern.

the muted blue complements the brown. these two colours work well in concert. they anchor each other. each raises the stakes.

#3

again, we see blue helping out brown. not only do the ribbon and the interior of the hat set of the hair, but they enliven the woman's coast.

#4

in between the museum and home, i stumbled upon this brown-bathed brush touching up the outside of a building.

#5

this is one way brown happens. brown in process. the process of brown. brown in the making. making brown. one way that happens.

#6

i'm accustomed to seeing these newspaper bins in either blue or yellow. the smooth evenness of this one was appealing.

#7

Baltimore makes sense to me, the logic of its streets, the accessible nature of its historical importance. I can imagine my neighborhood a hundred years ago, fifty years ago, as easily as parting the slats of my blinds and looking down on my street, and seeing sepia toned ghosts of women and men walking arm in arm to the steps of their mock brownstones, before the wave of converted apartments took hold, and these architectural beauties were each homes, whole entities of dwelling. I used to live on North Calvert Street, one of what I call the “Power Three,” that includes St. Paul and Charles.

They run parallel to each other, with Calvert and Charles being northbound and St. Paul southbound. If you are on one of these streets, you can navigate your way to anyplace else in the city.

I was not born here. I was born in the political hot seat of the country, an hour south of here, but it has never been in my DNA like Baltimore is. Maybe it is that Baltimore chose me as much as I chose it. Who can account for the ownership we feel toward certain people and places and not others? I am the best version of myself suspended above the din of the sirens, panhandlers, bars, and corner transactions, but close enough to insist on myself in this mottled landscape. I love the yearning that assaults this city because it mirrors my own tumult back to me and makes me feel that I am not crazy because I want so much. It is a softer version of city, giving off all the intuitive vibrations of acceptance, a sensual kiss on the mouth, uncomplicated coffee, unassuming hipness, the hopes of the bluecollar to become middle class, art movements, and the pulling up of our selves by the bootstraps.

#8

here, brown is used to emphasize the waning autumn season and the general despair of this couple. there is a growing, palpable separation. the peace is called something like Waning Honeymoon.

#9

I chose this painting because of the amount of brown and the richness with which the subject's complexion is conveyed.

#10

Brown, here, is dullness, the end of options. It is the absence of colour. There is no lush depth, just a pallid tan.

#11

Brown creates cohesion and movement. This room, in totality, is minimalist but full.

#12

repetition of blue and brown. this combination suggests wealth. the blue is more of an accent than an equal player.

# 13

One of the first pieces I photographed. The brown stone highlights the austere majesty of the figure.