Sunday, January 18, 2009

January 18 Daily Art Page Pink


Pink. Frankly, I've always liked the color if not the connotations. But then, I'm a pale brunette. It's one of "my colors" so that's no surprise.
Back at the 3Day I heard a lot of women talking about how much they hated it. This opinion was held by my sister-in-law, a blonde who is better suited to turquoise and green. Her hatred of the color seemed tinged somehow with politics and I had the feeling the other pink-haters did too.

There's no fighting pink though. Not on the 3Day and so by Day 3, all the 3Day virgins are pretty inured to it and have collected so many strings of beads, feather boas and shoelaces that pink has gotten under our skin.

We really love it though when, after the finish line has been crossed and our coveted white shirts are on our backs, we look up and see all those other women in pink shirts. In the cult of the 3Day, nothing packs more of a wallop than the sight of so many women, especially those you've walked with, talked with, bitched with and blistered with, in pink. 

At this moment the political connotation of pink changes forever: not pink collar, no pink undies, nothing little girl and fragile about these girls. Pink, here, is the strongest color of all.


My page is a bit of disappointment to me because I could not execute on the idea, based on two memories: the one described above from just a few months ago, to another from 1961 when I took my first faint, in church. Not a religious experience but an interesting prelude to what would become a real talent for the unconscious. And in a pink dress my aunt had made, all skirt and sash and oversized collar. A real confection of dotted swiss.  

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