"My
colors are like the light of early morning. A time of mystery."
Baunnie, workshop participant
Experiencing yourself in color is the heart and soul of the Clothe Your Spirit process. You are actually "in color" in a way that is utterly unique. The gift of color is our ability to not only think about how it looks, but to sense how it makes us feel. Opening up to the sensation of color allows you to experience your uniqueness more fully. Clothe Your Spirit offers a bridge from your pure love of color to showing you ways you can enhance your appearance by experiencing yourself as part of nature’s color scheme.
The more you interact with color, the more you open up your senses to those interactions, the more your ability to distinguish the subtleties in color grows. The more you look the more your eye learns to see. An obvious way to interact with color is when making clothing choices. Learn to wear the colors that enhance and express you. From there you can open up to a broader sense of actually being created in color. You were created the same way as the world around you. Sensing that reality enhances your experience of yourself and ultimately your experience of being beautiful.
When the ocean is a certain shade of blue-green, I’m struck by how similar in color it is to my eyes. When the sun breaks through an overcast sky and casts diamonds of light on the shimmering gray water, I am moved by the moment of beauty. Within the dancing sparks of light, I see a color not unlike the sparkling threads of my own silver hair. I may love the sight of all roses in a garden, but my heart opens to the crimson red bloom. Blue-green, sparkling silver, and crimson are all colors contained in my coloring and I often wear them for their enhancing capabilities, but I am also attuned to them in way that is different from the other millions of colors my eye is constantly taking in. The unique way certain colors touch my heart and spirit are what I call resonant colors.
Resonance is literally "an increase in sound by one body caused by sound waves of another vibrating body." It is also defined as "intensified and enriched by". When you see a color that is in your own personal coloring, you feel a unique sensation, something akin to love or deep recognition. This is not to say I respond only to colors that are in my coloring. I react with giddy pleasure to radiant yellow blooms, especially against a vivid blue sky. The feeling of resonance is a softer, deeper sensation, like a vibrational hum inside my body. The pearly pink colors of a twilight sky arouse a tender feeling in my heart, and a deep turquoise Caribbean sea causes my heart to pound. The particular emotional response, be it a sharp, sudden intake of breath or a softening of all the senses, is another way to describe resonance.
The sweetness of relating to your own special hues in such a immediate and personal way expands the concept of beauty. When you see something beautiful that moves you, it compares to holding up a looking glass and seeing an aspect of your own beauty reflected there. Connecting with the world around you expands your sense of self. Fill yourself with that connection as a way to grow more beautiful.
As
we move through life in harmony with the changing seasons, we have an
opportunity to feel and express different aspects of ourselves. Winter
pulls us inward, while we burst forth in time with Spring’s renewal. We
crave wearing different colors every season. In the Fall the reds of my
sweaters and blouses begin to deepen from their bright Summer hues, going
from fresh cherry to deep cranberry and finally to rich burgundy wine
by the time of the Winter Solstice. When the trees begin to blossom in
late February, I start craving pink, pink, and more pink; petal pink,
blossom pink, hot pink, raspberry and strawberry pink. My mood changes,
and so does my lipstick. I also want a variety of richly colored clothing
enabling me to reflect subtler shifts, expressing my energy on a daily
basis. All of this attention to the colors in my wardrobe allows me to
feel a greater connection to my inner self and the world around me.
I am always seeking a deeper relationship with all aspects of my own inner duality, the yin and yang of who I am. I am fascinated how the outgoing fiery side of my nature intersects with the more inward looking contemplative side. Color is my second language. It is how I express myself and relate to the world around me. Learning to see and relate to color is like developing any relationship that is furthered by awareness. It takes time, practice, commitment.
The joys that color brings to your life, to your sense of your uniqueness and your beauty, are almost too numerous to describe. Color gives you a high, bringing moments of pure pleasure to your existence. It makes you feel vibrant and alive, nourishes and sustains you, and has potential to bring you into better harmony and balance. Can you feel the longing for more color that already exists inside you? Open yourself up to it. There are so many ways to bring the experience and connection into your life. The rest of this site is filled with ideas. Get your colors and make-up done, schedule a private painting session, check out the ideas in the Projects To Try section. Go through your wardrobe with an eye for new combinations. Take an art class, go to museums, travel with a camera and a box of crayons. Being able to draw isn’t necessary. Notice everything. There is no reason to live an impoverished life dressed in black and surrounded by neutrals.
As you begin interacting more and more with color, watch what happens to your appearance. I truly feel the most beautiful when I have been outdoors painting. I come home with hat hair, dusty, sunburned, streaked with paint, and filled up with the outside. If I stop for a cool drink on the way home, I expect everyone to be gaping at my radiance. This is what we long for, a sense of ourselves as beautiful and fully alive. For nothing is more beautiful than a person expressing themselves and radiating a love of life. Let color take you there.
Connecting with your body image in a positive way begins to happen when you focus on your assets instead of your perceived imperfections. Finding aspects of your body to appreciate and in turn highlighting them with clothing is a great first step. Over the years I’ve become quite skilled at looking in the mirror and focusing on the "good" parts and ignoring the "flaws", but my work as an artist engaged in the process of learning to see has shown me that we need to look more openly, see ourselves more fully. When we go further and view our body as a whole we will find ourselves to be even more beautiful.
Whenever
you focus on one aspect to the exclusion of another you distort your ability
to see. Let me tell you about the experiences that reshaped my vision.
Several years ago I started taking Figure Drawing classes. Each week we
had a different live model. Before me stood a beautiful naked body, and
I was to capture it’s likeness on my drawing pad. At first all I could
see were parts; breasts, bellies, buttocks, nipples, impossibly large
male genitalia. Distinctive features were the only thing my untrained
eye could focus on. "Proportion, proportion", my instructor
Carol would say over and over. "Gage the length of the torso, notice
how the pelvis sits, look how the shoulder attaches to the collarbone."
When you draw you see how every connection matters; the distance between
the collarbone and breast, breasts to navel, the navel to the pubic bone.
Our eyes needed to make hundreds of tiny measurements as we contoured
the landscape of each particular model. My torsos were invariably too
long and took up the entire page. The breasts and thighs were too prominent.
"Try to learn to see inside" she said, as she sent me home with
books on anatomy and instructions to try and visualize the underlying
musculature.
Learn to see the whole instead of the parts seemed to be what was required. If I could do this, would it in turn allow me to view the underlying balance and symmetry of my own body? If only I could learn to see myself as I was starting to see the models. As an image consultant, I saw the body as a collection of pluses and minuses, areas to emphasize and areas to downplay. Now I was learning the secret to understanding form was to seeing all parts and proportions as a unified whole. After class I would go home and look in a full-length mirror, squinting at my own body, trying to imagine it in front of my group, viewed in its entirety instead of the limited, sidelong way I had always looked at it. One day I was feeling both brave and curious, so I set up my easel, got out my big pad of newsprint, and sketched myself.
At first my waist and rounded belly appeared huge to my critical eyes. As I got lost in my drawing they slowly began to become part of the greater form, just another curve flowing into the integrated and superbly proportioned whole. I stopped seeing disjointed "parts" and started seeing unity. My view of my body changed from acceptance to appreciation. This new way of seeing has remarkably enhanced my ability to choose flattering, and most importantly, expressive clothing. A greater connection to my physical form allows me to connect even more fully with my essence/spirit. What a revelation to see all of me!
As my class drawings improved, I became more aware that the models were more than a collection of assorted shapes and curves, but were fully animated by their unique physicality . Each expressed themselves differently with the poses they chose. Solid, muscular Andrew posed with great strength and concentration. Ballerina Peggy was happiest in motion. Willowy Wanda naturally let her body form into sensuously curved poses, while Tierza’s lithe body vibrated with drama. We students tried to capture their unique essence as well as their gestures. We marvel at the colors of their skin, look for patterns of light and dark, and attempt to create the weight and breadth of these living creatures on the flat picture plane of our canvas. I’ve noticed that when we have a fuller female model that everyone breathes easier, because for those few hours we are all allowed to enjoy the pleasure of looking at sensuous fleshy curves. As we take in the lushness, we are healing our own inner critics, awakening to the experience that all forms in nature are beautiful.
Are you wondering if I’ve learned to see my clients differently as well? I believe I have. I’m much more conscious of how their body forms a beautifully balanced, intelligent, integrated whole. I tell them so, but if they hear me they rarely believe it. The harsh critic in the mirror drowns out my voice. Fortunately, the vision of themselves in the new clothing is persuasive.
I
don’t expect you to take up figure drawing in order to learn to see and
understand the beauty of your body. Not all of the women in my classes
even share my experience of enhanced self-appreciation. What can we do
to feel more loving toward the image we see reflected in the mirror? The
fact that our culture has a ridiculously limited idea of what constitutes
physical beauty is not a revelation to most of us, yet we still struggle
to accept the size and shape of our own bodies. Even if we know intellectually
that the images plastered on magazine covers are unrealistic and unhealthy,
it is still difficult to accept whatever shape our body happens to be
in now. As a society we have a long way to go, and for the sake of the
next generation of young women as well as for ourselves, our personal
and collective vision must change. As you join the wave of women changing
their attitudes, you become part of the force for greater cultural change.
Improving your body image begins with changing your attitude to one that
is more healthy and realistic, but you can also improve your visual perception
of yourself. The key is learning to see yourself in
a new way.
If you want to view yourself differently, reclaim the beauty of your body’s unique spirit and expressiveness, I have some suggestions to help you.
Discover what is authentically beautiful to you. If you find yourself longing to look like the ultra-thin model you see in a magazine, question that. Is it really beautiful, or just familiar? Do you really think flat stomachs and muscular arms are aesthetic? Do you feel your heart open when you look at images of rounder, fuller women? Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder. Pay attention to how something you are looking at is affecting you.
Decide what you value.. Maybe you like the look of super-toned bodies, but do you want to spend that much time working on it? Move in ways you enjoy. Let your body express who you are and what is important to you.
Opportunities abound for you to "re-vision" your self image. Connect to your own strength and voluptuousness by looking at photographs and paintings of larger, curvier women. Check out MODE Magazine. The models are gorgeous, and they inspire us to stop hiding and be more daring. I’m also moved by the beauty of classical paintings. The rounded shapes of the women in Degas’ bather series are my favorite. Renoir creates a lovely lushness in many of the women he paints.
Surround yourself with people that make you feel beautiful. Your opinion of yourself lags the furthest behind, but fortunately you are susceptible to positive influences. If someone tells you something about your body is beautiful, let it in.
Get help understanding what clothes flatter your figure. Wear clothes that fit perfectly and reflect your spirit. If the stores overwhelm you and nothing seems to fit, seek out an expert for advice.
Strengthen your awareness of your uniqueness. This entire web site is dedicated to helping you. Get together with other women and share some of the ideas that inspire you.
Finally, remember that learning to see yourself in a positive way is a process. Everything you see, hear, or tell yourself contributes to your self-image. Embrace who you are now, and all you are becoming.
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