songs about rainbows? …Not only does the thoughtful combination of color delight me; color in general, is a pretty fascinating topic.  For example, have you ever wondered why cultures that tend to spice up their foods also, generally speaking, often prefer the more saturated hues of the color spectrum, and in larger combinations?  ME TOO!  When I embarked on my journey to India 5 years ago, I went with the high hopes of basking in the reality that fashion icon Diana Vreeland first observed in the 60s, that hot pink was the navy blue of India….and I was not disappointed.

Here are  a couple images of abundant color that I find compelling and poignant and beautiful.  The first is one from Chris Jordan, from his series covering the devastation of hurricane Katrina: an image that speaks both of overwhelming tragedy and hope of mythic proportion, jogging our collective memories of  a rainbow after another horrific flood. Next, Hans Hemmert’s balloon tank that takes the adult reality of war and deflates it with children’s play….swords will be turned into plowshares, tanks into party balloons. And last, the work of Haas&Hahn with the help of a team of thirty painters and Tintas Coral on homes in Dona Marta, Botafogo, Brazil; taking a marginalized neighborhood and making it a sacred space, a destination for those in search of beauty.

The color peach and gray hair have both been on my mind lately.  (not to mention the growing strands of gray that increasingly grace my head, o natural, now that i’m the ripe old age of 32).  I couple months ago I read an article in the fashion section of the New York times about gray hair as a trend among hipsters and just recently in my hometown of Cincinnati caught sight of an early 20 something fashionista sporting a full head of gray locks.  The times article talked about the irony of teens and 20 somethings dying their hair gray when their mothers (and sometimes fathers) spend into the billions collectively  washing that gray right out.  Course, there’s a handful of potential cultural influences, Japanese anime characters, the granny chic movement, and I would love to say a cultural shift toward embracing the aging process in general…but this seems like a long shot at this point…baby steps.

Way past flirting on the cultural edges like the gray hair trend, the color peach seems to be surpassing it’s role as pink’s ugly step sister, in the words of Heather Spriggs, a lifelong friend and color guru . I recently walked into Urban Outfitters to find it as the dominant color, both in display and clothing options…they were pretty unapologetic in their peachiness. But then a continued clash of aesthetic values rages on Heather’s blog over peach’s place in fashion and design. One reader told the author to “put her hands up and step away from the peach paint” as if she was about to commit style suicide!  Wow, people sure do get impassioned about their color choices…

But of course, it’s not just about color.  It’s never just that. It’s all of what that color represents.  Like the aroma of your grandma’s baking bread or the now pungent smell of your ex’s perfume, color can take you back too. And to many folks in my generation, peach reminds us of our mother’s decor, the peach + mint green or mauve and country blue options of the eighties.  We’ve hated peach ever since puberty and the need to differentiate from our parents.  But wait, the peach haters have kids now and some are even old enough to sense what we hate and subsequently embrace it. Maybe they also see their mother’s distain for her gray hair. So they are now off to soak their head in silver dye.  What up with that?

In my opinion, a lot that is good and wholesome and intrinsic to being human….fascination with novelty and variety, need to differentiate from previous generations, the questioning of arbitrary rules, embracing change…all good stuff that helps us grow when balanced with some humility and intellectual depth.

Those last two points are key to me: humility to express ourselves without making our own rules to contradict the one’s we’re questioning (my mother used WAY too much peach, so therefore any amount of peach is WRONG. Never mind that incredible peachy, pink sunset)  And depth…so you see your mother dying out her gray hair and you decide to “go gray.”  That’s fun, but what if you looked a little deeper into why she does what she does and instead of only rebelling with your gray hair and baby face, decide to be a part of a culture that embraces aging and subsequently change society, instead of just your hair. And I bet gen. Y’s have the guts to do just that. I like them; they’re feisty.

Welcome to my website!  It just so happens that in addition to working on this new virtual space, we’ve been busy making a brick and mortar home  (well, actually wood frame, to be specific) for Betty Hatchett Design Co. Here’s a sneak peak of the progress. (that’s little ole 6 ft tall me, for perspective). Many thanks to the strong, capable folks at DGM Transformations for the new walls. And of course to my multi talented husband, Sam, for trading the big, obstructive caller ties for the sleek cable, letting us appreciate the height of the space (just one among the many things he’s done to give us exactly what we need). The exposed space along the bottom of the wall in the panoramic shot will be built in cabinets (a huge gift from my retired-engineer-turned-carpenter dad) I’m certainly lucky to be surrounded by so many supportive, fantastic folks in my life. I’ll upload more photos of office progress, but in the mean time, it feels good to have a new home on the web!