Color Literacy

There is one thing that makes us all unique.

Our consciousness, senses, the way we perceive the world, and color vision.

It is so exclusive to our own experience we can't even know if any two have it in common.

In terms of language, it is certain that nobody is in full agreement in a thing I call color literacy.

When I was a kid, Gumby was blue. It was what I thought and what I knew.

But no, say other observers, Gumby is not blue, but green.

Even as I was assured this by common opinion, I disagreed.

So which is it? Is Gumby blue or green?

The answer is he is both and neither.

At a low level of color literacy, the words for basic colors we know are black, white, red, blue, green, yellow, brown, and grey, and, when we experiment with color mixing, colors like pink, purple, and orange. We generally know that Pink and Purple happens when we mix Red with White or Blue. Grey is black and white. At a higher level, we find out that green and red make yellows and browns.

Then there is the zenith. At this peak, which few ever reach, we find out that many have a high tolerance for what they consider blue or green. Become more discriminate, and you become aware that there is Another color.

The color you get when Blue and Green come together.

Its name is Cyan, and its hues are teal, azure, and turquoise. This is the color of Gumby.

When I knew these colors, I reached a new level of color literacy.

With increased literacy, yellow-green becomes Chartreuse, the lighter shades of Purple become Violet, Magenta, and Fuchsia, with mauve if it's a bit greyed; White and blue is Periwinkle — my favorite. Greens come in Celadon, Brunswick, and verdant. The rich hues of Yellow include Amber and Ochre; Ecru is yellow desaturated. I even have an awareness of Burgundy and Eigengraw.

Then there is the Nirvana that very few reach.

The forbidden. The impossible. The chimeric.

The realization — and experimentation — that the color opponent system of ganglions beneath our cones and rods can be hacked to see colors we're not meant to know. I fatigued my opponent color system, put on 3d glasses, and saw them for myself. Only two have been documented: Red-Green and Blue-Yellow.

Red and green can mix to make yellowish colors, but that's not truly a chimeric reddish-green. Neither does blue and yellow make green — or white if you have a little more literacy — but something that can only be described as yellowish blue. These were discovered on tests and can be found online for those curious. But there are more, and this is where I know I'm unique to anyone else in the world.

If the opponent colors of red and green do not truly make yellow, the logical conclusion is that the opponents of red and blue do not make purple. The impossible combination of red and blue is reddish blue, and it has to be seen to be understood. There is also reddish-cyan and magenta-green. These colors have no name. What would I call them? For yellow-Blues, my working name is Yelue, and I would expand it to names like Hazel and Hydrangea. Then there's Magreenta, which I would name for the green Poinsetta plant with magenta spots. For Cyred and blue-red, I have not come up with anything I have seen in the natural world for them.

There are more hidden colors to find if you play with your opponent color senses. There are hyperbolic and stygian shades that go beyond the threshold of adding colors to black and white. Giving your fatigued ganglions a break by looking at the opposite opponent color can bring out the color's zing.

I'm working on a program in Java to let others experiment and see the colors for themselves called Colors Out of Space.

This is my unique relationship with color.