Destination: Nelson! (Part 4) - (Trans)Formation

4th in a series of 5 after
Destination: Nelson! (Part 1)
6 Sep. 2014
Destination: Nelson! (Part 2) - Festival of Lights
13 Sep. 2014
Destination: Nelson! (Part 3) - The (Extra)Ordinary
24 Sep. 2014

Anecdotally and for ages - specific colors have been associated with specific emotions, states of being: red roses but also seeing red (no, the bull does not respond to the color but becomes irritated by the waving of the cape - who wouldn't!); from Mood Indigo to black moods; blue movies and purple prose; green for great expectations (on the far side of the hill) but also green with envy; the yellow ribbon 'round the old oak-tree; the grey area of pink-for-girls and blue-for-boys; virginal white; black widows' weeds here - while white for the grieving in Asian countries.

Tradition has it in Japan that a woman should not wear red after the age of 40; in China - for centuries - yellow was exclusively reserved (with deadly consequences - if) for the-only-son-of-heaven emperor.
When I was a child - wearing combinations of green/blue, red/pink, red/purple was unthinkable - worlds in collision! Only beige, blue, brown, green and grey were safe!

 

 

Scientifically it has been proven that certain colors can have a soothing-thus-healing effect in medical settings, schools. And prisons. I changed primary-care physicians here when my previous one moved into a wall-by-wall black and apple-green office without windows: DOA!

So - as we have come to know the transformational quality of color: it seems reasonable that an appropriately colored environment will also have a positive thus swaying influence on - shoppers! Downtown shoppers!

Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art!

                                                                                         Andy Warhol

Retail-therapy!

But first imagine downtown the way it will soon look for most of a year: no hanging flower-baskets, empty flower-beds used as ashtrays by a multitude of the aware, bare trees - and exhausted heritage-buildings. The whole not a problem for most Nelsonites: heritage-type mud-puddle colors form the local rainbow. Plus - for long stretches - pedestrians only look at their feet anyway: slushy-icy sidewalks!

Downtown is a getting-stuff-done habit - as opposed to being an all-around pleasurable experience.

 

So now imagine the same downtown during the same dead-zone phase - but bright, energetic, ALIVE WITH COLOR! Look up - look way up! Color in paint and light! And safe sidewalks connecting all!

No unremarkable "festive" twinkle up-and-down trees, lamp-posts: buildings themselves are painted/lit in competition with each other to draw-in customers, guests!

Wasting money puts you in a real party mood!

                                                                        Andy Warhol

  

 

Downtown becoming a destination: previously unconnected shopping-islets morphed into one conceptual environment - an infectious transformation for/with locals and tourists alike!

All images here are of only one building and one room in this building: the House of Light, headquarters of Skira D.O.O. Electrical Installation Design in Pula, Croatia. Treatment of the outside is a demonstration of Skira's work - the inside is a laboratory for experimental application of light on moods: creating and altering them.

Color-therapy!





Next/last in the series:
Destination: Nelson! (Part 5) - The Sound of Color