It was red and yellow and green and brown/And scarlet and black and ochre and peach/And ruby and olive and violet and fawn/And lilac and gold and chocolate and mauve/And cream and crimson and silver and rose/And azure and lemon and russet and grey/And purple and white and pink and orange/…And blue.

— Tim Rice, Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

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Last week, I discussed the (non-) color of the coronavirus. A few days later, we received a note from an old, old friend quite relevant to color—in this case though, the refracted color of paint. If you’re anything like us, you’re using all this fill-in-the-gaps time to purge, de-materialize and generally to sort out the stuff of life, the wheat from the chaff. In Joe’s case, the chaff is represented by old cans of paint. Joe has kindly allowed me to reproduce his insightful thoughts here.

Color Whisperer Joe Boyd at home in Bellingham, WA. Ottoman/paints are: Bridal Veil, (white) Oregon Coast (grey), Fair Peach (beige), and Porpoise. The CW is adorned in a Buttercup Morning shirt, Cobalt jeans, Desert Rust watch cap, sitting in an Irish Meadow (green) chair, on a Blue Ridge Maple deck, trimmed in Albino Ascot (white). [Credit: Ilona Maves]

…I may be onto some great breakthrough.

I have been cleaning out our garage and storage, and have been disposing (legally) of some of the toxins, among which are different paints we’ve used over the years. I was marveling at the names given the colors: Oklahoma Wheat; Adobe Dust, Fair Peach, to name a few. When I consider the thousands of different shades of paint when I go to some place like Home Depot, I can imagine some marketing team struggling to come up with different descriptive names for the colors.

I found that the outside of our house, dark green, is a color called ‘Porpoise.’ I get the feeling that this color name was done at the eleventh hour by someone who really needed to get home after a grueling week. Most of the interior is done in a color called ‘Cosmic Cloud,’ which I would call pale blue.

I think I might be an excellent ‘Color Whisperer’ (yes, I created the name, and will be applying for copyright status). First, I would use an adjective, followed by a noun, of course. However, like ‘Porpoise,’ a single noun, or even a verb might work, depending on the color.

I would think the Color Whisperer would get a bonus for an alliteration, for example, ‘Desert Dawn,’ or ‘Ambient Amber,’ although there might be a discount if you actually name the color. Of course, there would be some adjectives that would be eliminated all together. ‘Malignant’ and ‘Bubonic’ come to mind. Nouns having to do with secretions, such as ‘Mucus’ and ‘Urine’ should be shelved as well..

Most colors should have some nature-themed names: ‘Desert’ would precede bold reds and yellows, such as ‘Desert Sunrise,’ or ‘Desert Sky,’ More pastel hues would be preceded by the word ‘Tropical’: ‘Tropical Sunset,’ or ‘Tropical Morning,’ Bright, harsh colors would reflect severe conditions; white could be ‘Arctic Ice.’

A true Color Whisperer would earn his accolades by avoiding any semblance of color at all, leaving the shade basically up for grabs, and the name to play with the customer’s imagination: These might be saved for desperate measures ‘Temptation,’ ‘Jubilee,’ and ‘Sanguine’ could be used when your brain just won’t work any more.

The beauty of this job is it can be done anywhere. No need for an office, just come up with some terms, and let the marketing team match them up with the colors. Just think of the inner joy and satisfaction you’ll experience when you drive by a house painted ‘Amorous Aqua,’ or visit a home with walls colored in ‘Northern Moonlight,’ followed by a luncheon in a gazebo accented with ‘Fiesta Caliente.’ (This last color would generate a special bonus for pairing two foreign words that really don’t make much sense together.)

So there you have it: A career spawned by removing toxins from the house during the Coronavirus Apocalypse. Hey, that could be the name of a very distinctive color.

[Ed: or non-color]