"We can use coloring to enter into a more creative, freer state," says psychologist Antoni Martínez. "We can also use it to connect with how we feel, since depending on our mood we choose different colors or intensity."
Which is exactly what we did when a group of us got together to color mandalas. Carl G. Jüng was one of the first psychologists to apply coloring as a relaxation technique using mandalas or circular designs for their concentrated shapes. I was really looking forward to coloring my mandala with crayons. There is nothing better than to open a fresh box and dig in to look for your favorite colors. Who doesn't love the smell of crayons? We chose our mandalas by drawing numbers from a bowl. I drew The Tree Of Life, a powerful symbol of growth, as it's the only living thing that continues to grow throughout its lifetime. All the mandalas were awesome and their symbolisms were just as meaningful and universal. Once I started to color it was as if time stood still, and before I knew it I was done. I wasn't expecting to use the colors that I did. They were much brighter, but I liked them! Someone in the group thought my mandala reminded them of a juicy mango, ripe and abundant. I thought, "it was bursting with color alright".
A week after the exercise I was going through old boxes my mother had saved for me and I found some old jewelry I used to wear in my twenties. I felt the pieces had gone out of style but they were valuable, and like most people in their twenties I was moving around and didn't want to lose them. I had completely forgotten about them. Color and memory go hand in hand. I was a young girl searching for my place in this world wearing these colors. Then I remembered my mandala. The stones were the exact same colors I used to color my Tree Of Life.
I suddenly looked at my colorful tree as a beautiful metaphor for how my passion for helping others through color grew over the years. I had not realized that my love for Art to wanting to be an Art Therapist, which was my first major, continued to be deeply rooted in my heart eventually leading me to circle back around, become a Color Consultant, and create colors for the emotional well being of others. My tree, from a seedling, had bore fruit. Mangos!
" I changed majors like I changed hairdos. I started with Art Therapy, moved on to Architecture, Fashion Design and settled for Graphic Design and worked for Estee Lauder as a Training Consultant while getting my BA at Portland State. After college, I got jobs in outside sales for Phillip Morris and Bristol Meyers Squibb. Once I had my kids, I took on the job of a stay-at-home mom and began to create art between naps and play dates. My work sold in galleries and I even had an art piece in a curated collection sell out of the Bellevue Art Museum during the Bellevue Art Festival. Because my colors and patterns made everyone feel good the instant they saw it some called it "Prozac Art". The colors I crafted were a sum of my color experiences. And I was thrilled to share them with others. When I started creating colors for my walls and painting everyone loved them so much they began to ask for my help. I couldn't refuse. Once again my art was making people instantly feel good. I went from making "Prozac Art" to making "Color Therapy For The Northwest", to becoming a Color Consultant and creating Devine Color."
My mission today to "Make Endings As Colorful As Beginnings" with color strategies and products for elderly and memory care along with Devine Color paint becoming a national sponsor of The Alzheimer's Association is confirmation that I am still growing and still bearing fruit. It was technicolor clear.
Color and memory go hand in hand and hard at work to help us to understand the world, ourselves, and each other. I highly recommend you get a group of friends and try coloring.