Walking to the theater the other day between rain storms I looked up to see the sky filled with clouds and the morning sun fighting its way through. The effect of this stopped me in my tracks as I gazed upon this wonder of natural light. The sky, ten thousand shades of gray as varied as all the colors in a rainbow, caused me to reflect upon my feelings regarding light and color and texture.
When I first discovered lighting design it was color that drew me to the medium. The ability to make something shine brilliantly or nearly disappear based solely on the color of light applied to it fascinated me to no end. I went to NYU for graduate school in large part because there was a heavy focus on color and color theory. Robert Wierzel, whose work was a major motivating factor in my choice of school, uses heavy saturate colors in a lot of his work. I had also heard of Curt Osterman’s color lecture which alone is arguably worth the price of the degree. By the end of my three years I had certainly got what I paid for; a deep and rich understanding of the interactions of color.
In addition to studying with these masters of color I pursued study on my own through reading and exploring Joseph Albers’ The Interaction of Color and Kandinsky’s Concerning the Spiritual in Art. Beyond mere study, I conducted numerous experiments in the light lab late at night and in theaters whenever I was working on a show. The 100+ dances I lit in my time at NYU gave me ample opportunity to construct and test hypotheses regarding color interactions. Further, I would use new colors and new color combinations on my shows in an effort to expand my understanding of color. In short, the last eight years have largely been devoted to a deep study and analysis of color.
Seeing that sky with those glowing clouds made all those color explorations fade into the distance. A whole new orientation to light was opening up as the sun revealed itself slowly and carefully through the cloud cover. Shades of gray.
I have loved gray as a color for a long time. I would often refer to it as my favorite color but then fall back into more saturated color choices when it came to designing a show. That morning something shifted. The sky opened and in that moment something in me opened as well. The feeling was one of recognition. Recognition of something that had long been close by yet just out of reach. Recognition that the illusive something I had been chasing after for many years was now within my grasp.
Prior to studying lighting design, I had been doing black and white photography for several years. In photography light and color is all shades of gray. The focus is on shade and shadow and angle. Color, by virtue of the medium, is not part of the equation. It might seem obvious that such an interest in photography would lead to a design sensibility oriented towards gray. Instead there was a long journey through the world of color. This detour through color has been an invaluable experience in terms of approaching gray with the richness of its full potential.
No two grays are the same. Some are pushed a little to blue, others to green, and still others to red. The color distinctions I have from these years of experimentation give great insight into how each of these grays interact. Further, two nearly identical shades of gray serve radically different functions depending upon what angle they come from or whether they are soft indirect lights or hard directional lights.
Exploring light only through shades of gray forces the work to be more rigorous. This is true with any tightly controlled color palette. Because the variation in terms of color is so slight the focus comes down to changes in angle and brightness alone. When an identical cue is put up on stage in amber and red instead of blue and green it can cause a bit of a sensation. The effect, however, is largely superficial.
A space must be revisioned to be completely transformed. The shadows must change, the hidden must come into view, we must shift our focus. Angle and intensity changes shift our understanding. Color can do this used broadly over the entire spectrum of hues. Color also does this contained within the narrow spectrum of gray tones and does so more effectively because the work the color is doing is more subtle and thus leaves the audience to their experience of the work rather than conscious of the design.
The possibilities contained within this tighter palette are very exciting. Orienting my work towards shades of grey will allow me to bring a new rigor and depth to the stage. I look forward to seeing what this new aesthetic sense will bring.
