Color Theories
Tuesday, July 23rd, 2024
TIPI CIRCLE circa 7:30pm—Faint, wispy clouds slowly rotate in the ovoid canopy opening. The sun lazily metes out its rays horizontally like spilled orange juice on a long table. Campers amble or commiserate in the pleasant evening air. A fierce group examination of Magic The Gathering Cards takes place on a nearby bench. Diablos are spun, a pair of sprinters sprint by. The Rainbow Theater’s PA system rumbles to life as counselors sound-check for tonight’s show, the aptly-named Weirdo Talent Night. The show will begin around 8 o-clock, but for now the business of free time is entertainment enough.
“You can’t describe a color!” blurts out Simón, 10, of the Orange Tipi, chaotically crash-landing into the seat of a nearby chair. “Describe this color!” he demands, pinching the shoulders of his royal purple T-shirt.
“Halfway between an eggplant and a radish,” I venture.
Set aback, but not nearly defeated, he refines his demand, “Make up a new color!”
“Ultra-orange,” I say.
“Humans can’t see ultra-orange!” he laments at the top of his lungs.
“Yes they can,” replies Nora, 10, of the Green Tipi, cooly entering the conversation. “It’s a very hard process,” she explains. “You have to hold your breath, and then you have to shake your head a little, like a shiver.”
Nora demonstrates, staring intensely into the air and shuttering like a wind-up toy. Simón mirrors her movements, nearly losing his balance.
“See? I Can see it!” Nora exclaims.
“We can see ultra-oraaange!” yells Simón, trailing off as both he and Nora fritter off into the distance with their new-found ability.
The conch blows, calling campers to the Theater. I look up to notice the orange juice sunbeams have faded to a milky ambience. After a brief flurry of running and shouting, all of Camp is assembled, leaving the Tipi Circle eerily uninhabited.
“Can MJ use your guitar?” asks Performance Coordinator Bayla Jaffe, holding a pencil and presumably the show’s running order. I retrieve my dreadnought Martin from its hiding place and return to my backstage perch.
“I am an old woman,” begins Kitchen Manager MJ Stamper, covering John Prine’s “Angel From Montgomery” in her raunchy alto.
Sitting in the abandoned Tipi Circle, I’m forced to reckon with a decorative element I often take for granted: tipi signs. At the beginning of every session, counselors and teens spend dozens of minutes crafting colorful signs out of cardboard and acrylic paint. This is done so that we can distinguish between Camp’s 15 tipis, which, though named after colors of the rainbow, are all in fact the exact color of dusty canvas. I’ll take this opportunity of diffuse lighting to do a quick roundup of this session’s tipi signs. I asked our resident art historian Jack Crawford to provide her analysis:
“Tipi signs: this pun-laden tradition provides an opportunity to assess the artistic skills of the Camp Winnarainbow staff. This session’s offerings showcase a host of paint handling techniques; UV and Scarlet’s signs demonstrate a quite free handling of paint and almost Expressionist gesturality. A vehicle motif is present in a number of signs this session, most notably in Scarlet and Orange tipi’s renderings of cars; props to Scarlet tipi for the application of foreshortening. While Sky Blue’s banjo and Indigo’s intricate graffiti inscription signs are clear standouts, Purple’s lack of sign is perhaps the biggest statement. In its singularity, the absent sign nevertheless achieves the sign’s function, denoting the tipi and articulating its point of view.“
RAINBOW:
MAROON:
SCARLET:
RED:
FLAME:
ORANGE:
GOLD:
YELLOW:
LIME:
GREEN:
SKY BLUE:
BLUE:
INDIGO:
PURPLE:
ULTRAVIOLET:
Stay hydrated,
—J. Payseno, Editor
