What made you decide to paint the Big House pink? I've heard this question a few times now, along with "Oh my god, I love the color(s)" and "The color choice makes me feel so happy!". This week I'm giving up the goods on "pink".
What seems like years ago now, Marianne presented us with color options for the project. The selection was narrowed down to two for the Big House; a light pink and mint green. That's when the debate began, until Esther a neighbourhood friend mentioned that, "in the day", you could identify houses in the hood that were owned by Chinese people because they were pink; she should know having lived in the hood for 40 years . When I heard that, the debate ended. We would pick pink as a nod to Mrs. Lau and her family, who lived in the house for many many years (see history in the BIG HOUSE section of this site May 2016). -- here ares some of the shots of what was presented.
Marianne was on it! Creamy Tomato Sauce, Glamour Girl, Salmon Berry and toss in some Opal and we're off to the races (June 11th 2018 post breaks it down in techni-pink). What I didn't expect was, the house to nod back, not once but three times. The first being when the siding started going up and the creamy tomato sauce with the fish scales came together and told me they were a fish! I looked at the house and the herring bone turret pine layout and thought wow, the fishing family I've come from is waving at me! (texture, head (fish scales and window for an eye), body and turret (herring bone), tail (bottom fish scale) -- to some it may be abstract but it's very clearly a salmon to me.
The second time the house nodded back was when Reece mentioned that the old door was the same color as the creamy tomato sauce. This was a bit dumb founding, as I knew that old door was not the same pink but when I looked at Cameraman's post of the old house on the fence I noticed the door color had changed. It now matched perfectly!! How strange was that, I thought, and added a piece of the painted cedar to the fence to share the match on the public art fence. The color had changed since Cameraman had posted it to the fence months ago and the door color changed leaving it's mark of approval; and speaking of marks...anyone recognize the tag? (who's ZAZFISH? ZAZYISUZ? ZAZYIEU? ZAZYIELLZ? -- I'd be happy to meet you happy tagger)
Lastly, and so randomly, I took an artist friend of mine on a tour of the house -- Mira Song asked to see how things were going. When we came to the site she said "oh, I know this color. I know it well". She was painting works for an exhibition opening at SOMA on 6th and Main and had incorporated this color into her paintings! The extra kicker was that Marianne had photoshopped Mira Song's work into a visual she used when convincing me to take out a window in the kitchen replacing it with an art piece like one of this artist: Mira Song hahaha. Marianne had no idea that I knew Mira, she just liked the work.
This weekend Mira opened her show and the stars aligned for Marianne to finally meet her and for fun with friends!! (hmmmm, which one do you think should go in the BIG HOUSE....)
