Humor Me

Before I transferred to a University during my art school tenure, I had just begun to experiment with the supposed border between fine art and craft; I was intrigued by the concept of function and utility. I made a fairly giant (3′ x 2′) cookbook from linoleum cuts printed on delicate handmade paper dusted with iridescent mica. It was completely impractical, though beautiful, in the guise of something practical. Above all, it was funny. My printmaking teacher chastised me for not being serious about my work. Now I know what you are thinking, but humor is a medium like anything else. Jonathan Swift, Elaine May, Moliere, Wanda Sykes, and Stephen Colbert are hilarious and deadly serious but most of all hilarious. Seriousness can be dedication, creativity, and craftsmanship. I think color and architecture can also be funny. Sly. Witty. Funny. And seriously so, that is to say, without frivolity. For this house on Fulton, the owners asked for it to feel modern, bold, and fun but not cartoonish.

 

(Sort of) After Roy Lichtenstein

 

C2-484 Summer Squall (body and lower trim)

C2-481 Stout (base and bay window trim)

C2-348 Minimum (main trim)

C2-119 Amontillado (dentils and underhang of bay windows).

I wanted to make the house feel almost flat, like a panel from a graphic novel. I also wanted to create a wonderous-strange (nearly) black and white house, a departure from the standard treatment of this architectural style.  The dentils are painted a brilliant saffron yellow, instead of gold leaf, which might be expected. In this case we used blue-blacks but the effect is essentially the same: graphic, slyly multi-media, and I think, pretty funny.

 

 

Fulton Street Detail

 

Invisible Woman

I am sometimes asked, “What is your specialty?” or “What is your ‘go-to’ color?” I aspire to be invisible. When I was an exhibiting artist, my work, without conscious effort on my part though somewhat expectedly, came out highly idiosyncratic: decorative, spontaneous-feeling, narrative, and colorful. I worked in printmaking, quilts, and woodworking. I love to carve, love color and poetry, and you could see it. My mark. That’s Nan’s, even if you didn’t know who I was.

Man Cave Chic

I want my color work to be beautiful, surprising, innovative, and in complete collaboration with the user’s desires.  I attempt to extract the kernel of what is desired and germinate it. I do assert myself: I have strong views about what will be successful yet these are always in service to the design goal, which is yours.
Creative application of the materials is paramount to me: in this case, “materials” are the interior or exterior space, the environment in its entirety, all the colors present, the function of the space(s), the colors I supply, and you. Because I have worked with color in so many different media for so long, I don’t  need to rely on what has been previously successful. I don’t wish to repeat myself because  every situation is unique. Creativity by definition is not rote. I want to be bag-of-tricksless. How I put colors together is where I want to make my mark. From the subtlest design to the wildest, I want to be unrecognizable. “Fantastic!” “How delicate!” “That’s outrageous! “Tell me who did that!”

MID-CENTURY PAS DE DEUX

To further illustrate my “invisibility,” here are two recently completed interior designs for two Mid-Century houses, very similar architecturally and each residing atop a hill in San Francisco.

Art Collectors in Forest Hills

This family has an amazing and diverse art collection, which it was their express desire to highlight. The couple has very young children so they also requested a design that was functional and easy to maintain; I therefore used very few (4) colors in this 2 bedroom house, not including ceilings and trim.  For the living room and master bedroom we used Philip’s Perfect Colors B4 Beachwood, a shimmering full spectrum beige that I recently used on an exterior. This color not only is a rich and flexible backdrop to the couple’s collection, but it also contains just enough red to balance their predominately though subtley green furnishings. For the foyer we chose C2-235 Slaty Brine, a slightly dusky yet energizing turquoise, a welcoming burst that also reflects this family’s palpable happiness.

Self-Proclaimed Non-Art Collectors in Golden Gate Heights

This couple had just bought their house from a family of art collectors who had painted the house pretty much beige everywhere. Now let me be clear, I do not think that beiges and whites are necessarily the  best backdrops for artwork in a residential or non-museum setting. (For fascinating colors used in a museum please visit the De Young Museum some time.) As with many design choices, it depends. In any case, this couple requested that the walls be their artwork, since they had very few actual pieces. We used 15 colors in this 2 bedroom house. Some were subtle and some not so much. In the picture to the right there are 7 colors.

A Study in Gold of a Golden Study

To the left is another room in the same Mid-Century house. Alternating planes of color move you throughout the house, like walking inside a painting. For these two houses I took very different design goals and applied them to similar architecture. I hope the designs are equally beautiful and inspiring to their inhabitants and seamlessly dovetail into who they are as people and personalities: again, I hope I have “disappeared.”

Color Correction

The large Tudor I was working on is finally done. Though I often gravitate towards dramatic changes (since you are going about the trouble to paint…), here the owner wanted a rejuvenating facelift: “Make it look younger!” she implored. I stayed close to the original colors in that I chose a beige and chocolate brown (PPC Beachwood and C2 Chocolate Therapy) however, the beauty and complexity of the color formulation, particularly the shimmery full spectrum Beachwood, made a huge difference in “lightening” the feel of such a large and erstwhile imposing home, gargoyles and all. We added some “dainty” details, too.

Living Large

Her Beloved Duck

Hello world!

My name is Nan Kornfeld and I work as a color consultant and designer in San Francisco. I aim to blog about my process for color design: why I choose the colors I do, how I work with various clients, and the ways color can transform the architectural environment. I see color design as a collaboration among me, my clients, intuition, the science of human response, my artistic sense, the architectural environment, and the colors themselves. Recently I have begun writing copy for C2 Paint, an independent company with amazingly formulated and gorgeous colors. Having to describe the qualities and effects of colors, both informatively and poetically, has confirmed for me the profound effect color has on human beings. More soon and thanks for visiting.