When I was five my parents built a new house for us on a horse paddock. I’ve no idea what happened to the horses because we were 100% NOT a horse family. 

It was the 70’s and no one was shy about decoration or proper heating. Heaven. As a small Leo roaming the world I felt I had made major decisions in the design direction of that house, long before the term design direction was being used in small town New Zealand. 

As kids we each picked how our room was going to be decorated, it was the beginning of my love of interiors even if I didn’t know it. My room was at the end of the hallway, a genuine cul-de-sac where I could not be disturbed by my brothers, and the thing I remember most were my yellow curtains. 

I had not chosen curtains, I had chosen the feeling of a summer’s day.

So it’s no accident that I start my interviews with color with Yellow; we go back, and she’s not shy! 

Here’s some of our chat –

GF Describe your personality in a few words?

Y Awake, chatty, some would say a bit of a rascal. I’m indispensable yet you can’t take me too seriously.

GF Do you think this is how others see you?

Y Yes. It’s butter, or sunshine, both make you want to live another day.

GF How do you make people feel?

Y Happy. Happy like if your job was to lounge under a striped cabana on an icing-sugar-fine sand beach testing craft cocktails.

GF What’s one surprising thing you would like people to know about you?

Y I get anxious. Places where there’s a poverty of color make me very uncomfortable. I don’t want to be dramatic but…they are my version of hell.

GF Biggest disappointment?

Y Jaundice. 

GF Which human emotion do you most strongly relate to?

Y Is play an emotion?

What is your wavelength and how do you interact with light?

Y My wavelength is 565-590 nanometers, so right in the center of visible light. This is my relaxing side, I’m easy on the eye. I dance with the sun and make her power a tangible thing that people can touch.

GF Greatest moment in history? 

Y The late 1800’s which were often referred to as the ‘yellow nineties’. I was a symbol of the rejection of repressed Victorian values. 

GF Do you like music?

Y Very much – if you cross ambient with upbeat. 

The sort of tunes you would play on a Spanish rooftop terrace, after the bride and groom have left. 

GF If you could bend into a shape what would it be?

Y Definitely a circle…endless…that feels like me.

GF Do you have a spiritual side?

Y It’s not something that I can put into words. Goethe said that yellow is one of only two true colors, so…that. It’s not a God complex though.

GF Who do you marry well with?

Y I’m super happy when I’m around my vibrant friends like magenta, orange or vermillion, we can go bold or we can tone down. If you look at the greatest sunsets, we’re all there, closing down the day like a Broadway showstopper. My direct compliment is blue, this can be a real punch in the face statement.

GF How do you feel about grey?

Y Well honey, we all need her to make us look good.

GF What’s a new idea you have for the world?

Y Supermarkets should be color coded.

GF Do you have a favorite quote? 

Y Yes, it’s from Picasso – ‘there are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, thanks to their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun’

GF Colors are multi-dimenstional, what are your favorite family pigments? 

Y Orpiment, Imperial Yellow and Gold, you know, just the royal ones. 

GF How do we get more of you in our diet?

Y Buy the biggest jar of turmeric you can find, start adding it to everything, it’s wildly good. Start by replacing one of your coffees (no shade on brown of course) with a tumeric latte.

GF How do we get more of you in our home?

Y Well, if you’re still a bit color shy, try small additions like this statement book on Great Women Artists from Phaidon, or the happiest sheet-pan ever from Great Jones!

On the run?-sunshine in a drink bottle from from Owala, or try fun textiles like this knitted cushion.

And my never fail…lighting. Table top lamps will pop some sunshine and levity into any room; like the Smoothy from Gantri or this versatile rechargeable that you can take anywhere.

And if you’re not shy, go all out with larger pieces like this Ikea Hakebo Yellow armchair or this Canary Yellow modular sofa.

Better yet, be extravagant, with the likes of this piece from Saatchi Art

GF And one final question: on the Titanic, first or last on the lifeboats?

Y Oh babe, if I’d have been there, the boat would still be afloat.

 

by Tracey Henton