Smashing Color

with Maggie Maggio

The Fateful (and Colorful) Meeting

Lindly Haunani and I often tell the story of how we met. It was at the National Polymer Clay Guild retreat in the spring of ’95.

fimochart1995.jpgI brought copies of a color mixing chart for Fimo that I was selling as a fundraiser for my daughter’s 6th grade class.

The kids made all the mixes as part of a lesson I gave on color. This is just nine of the 21 “tiles” that they mixed. We made all the combinations of Fimo Yellow, Golden Yellow, Red, Magenta, Bordeaux, Blue, Light Turquoise and Navy.

In return for their collaborative help, I promised them all the proceeds from the sale. What did I get out of it?  The original chart!fimochart1995detail1.jpg

I made the tiles from gray clay and cut out the holes before baking them. I hadn’t figured out how to make color scales yet so each tile showed the 1/2, 3/4 and 7/8 mixes between two colors with each of those colors then mixed with 1/2 and 3/4 white. Here is the tile with Fimo Bordeaux mixed with Golden Yellow.

Once we settled into our tables at the retreat it only took a few minutes before someone said, “You have to meet Lindly. She loves mixing colors too.”

And in the meantime someone said to Lindly, “You need to go see Margaret’s color chart.” (I was called Margaret way back then.) 

We met in the middle of the room, color samples in hand. The rest is history.

1 Comment

  1. Hey Maggie,

    How fun to see that old color chart. I got one from you when we met at the first NWPCG Clay Camp back in 1995. I still have it to this day.

    It was you that taught me about “geometric” colour mixing and I apply the lessons I learned from you everyday in my work. Thanks.

    We’re looking forward to seeing you at Synergy.

    Cheers,

    -Dan

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