The Color of Water
Gavin Lee
Robin’s Eggshell
Photograph By
Anna Atkins
After so much time away from daily swimming, it’s breathtaking catching my first glimpse of the water. That dazzling blue. Cyan. I get a hit of both calm and excitement. I can’t wait to jump in! During the seven months without a pool I saw this color only twice. One morning on a hike, that familiar, long absent color suddenly appears between leaves and branches: a pool! Another time, it shows up again in an American Robin’s egg shell. The color is named Robin egg blue, eggshell blue or lost egg blue. I had no idea until then that I’d feel deprived not only of swimming but also of the sight of this very special blue.
Today I learn that this same shade of blue is called haint blue in the American south, made from crushed indigo and traditionally painted on porch ceilings in slave quarters to ward away haints, or ghosts. The color mimicked the sky, tricking the ghost into passing through, or mimicked the appearance of water, which ghosts could not cross.
I’ve always loved this color, introduced to cyanotypes through the work of Anna Atkins, who is recognized as the first woman to create a photograph. And as a child, I was surrounded by that blue, watching my father create blueprints of his architectural drawings.
It’s one thing to see this color and yet how much more thrilling to also be immersed in it.
Thank you to our friends Phyllis and Lee who generously offered his lane to me this morning!
… L