Decorating with Gray
It is May Gray as I write this, the SoCal phenomenon in which fog from the Pacific Ocean rolls ashore as landlocked clouds. Most days May Gray dissipates to reveal blue skies, but some days it hovers, clinging in fine mists. On those days, even as we prepare for business as usual, we retreat just a bit – stay inside a little longer, linger over coffee, nibble our breakfast while half listening to the daily surf report. As surely as mornings are cool and gray, the fog rolls away, leaving in its wake the golden hour that awaited all along, through haze burdened by gravity but not conquered by it.
It is appropriate that May Gray makes springtime contemplative, for gray is the most contemplative of tones. In design school, whatever medium we wanted ultimately to work in, we were required to start off with pencil on paper. We weren’t allowed charcoal or erasers. Every assignment was appraised only for execution. Every rendering had to contain, two decades before the phrase was corrupted by a book franchise, fifty shades of gray.
To a designer, fifty shades of gray is a value for the depth and complexity of a work, denoting a spectrum that untrained eyes may perceive but a designer must be able to work with. Those fifty shades of gray are the key that unlocks aesthetic facility. Gray is an achromatic color - a color devoid of hue and / or saturation. The three cardinal achromatic colors inhabit the spectrum of black to white, with true midtone gray at the midpoint. True midtone gray is an undiluted, unhued equal blend of fifty percent true white and fifty percent true black. From and to that midpoint, an infinite spectrum of shades of gray transverse toward and from the anchor points of black and white. This achromatic spectrum is known as the gray scale. The familiar ROY G BIV color wheel represents the chromatic spectrum.
The chromatic and achromatic spectra are separate and complimentary. That is why, when you look at a color chart from the fonts on your computer screen to the paint chips in the hardware store, the gray scale is shown separately from the color scale but alongside it. You can choose any color and add gray to it or choose any gray and add color to it. Both scales interact, but they are perfectly fine existing on their own. At any point along the gray scale except absolute white and absolute black, an achromatic color splits off the achromatic spectrum into the chromatic spectrum at the introduction of the slightest hint of hue. From there it proceeds from barest tint to deepest saturation, from any point of departure from the gray scale to any point of arrival on the color spectrum. During that journey, any color from the gray scale can travel anywhere on the chromatic spectrum, proceeding tonally from the gray starting point. Thus a midtone gray that enters the color scale at medium green may start at aloe, develop through sage, culminate in moss.
Colors manifest in nature, so we can see the subtleties of gray by studying one of the high achievements of Mother Nature’s palette: a bird’s plumage. At a glance, a dove’s feathers are gray (even the white-winged ones). But look closely. While the achromatic scale presents from the alabaster of the feathers to the obsidian of the eyes, the plumage that we initially register as gray reveals a subtle spectrum that unveils its riches the deeper into it we look. The dove’s feathers reveal tonal gray mixed with color in muted tones of steel (blue), celadon (green), plum (purple), taupe (brown), coral (orange), and apricot (yellow). The scale of gray tones evolving into hued grays along the spectrum expresses in color the harmony of form and function that makes a bird’s feather among the most flawless accomplishments of design.
Gray is as peaceful as a dove's coo but can soar as high as a
seagull's wing. Gray is the steel wool scruff of a schnauzer’s muzzle and the
haughty couture of a poodle’s curls. Gray cuts a sharp swathe of shark fin and
a sleek sheen of sealskin. Gray is the wolf’s wintry coat, the koala’s cuddly
fur, the mink’s luxurious pelt. Gray thickens the derma of rhino and elephant and interlaces the scales of
lizard and snake. Gray can be as timid as a mouse, but it is as steady a
survivor as the rat. Gray is birch bark in the winter forest, the camp fire’s
smoke, the ashes left behind.
We think of the seashore as sand and sky, but seaports in a
storm conjure overcast skies and the dazzling blue grays of the thunderhead.
The weathered planks of the boardwalk have long withstood steady sheets of rain
and pearly patches of drizzle. As the storm recedes, it leaves behind shiny
mirrors of puddles. Ribbony shadows of steelhead move through murky harbor
waters, glimpsed against pewter shelves of oyster beds and opalescent abalone,
lost anchors abandoned to the deep dark of lichen and silt.
Back on the mainland, gray is the palette of
industrialization. Gray is the iron and steel of skyscrapers, the petrichor of
asphalt and cement, the haze of smog and soot. Gray is the building blocks of
quarry stones and granite slabs, the refined veins in polished marble. Gray is
the hulking formations of brutalism and the glassy facades of modernism. Gray
is the polished chrome on a bullet train and the charcoal grime of the iron
horse, and gray is the grease that allows each to travel its track.
City, town, or country, gray is the shadowy flickers of black and white movies and the silver screen of the projected image. The gray scale swings
through the art deco swoon of Depression era musicals and lurks in mystery’s
shroud. London fog gathers on chilly streets, enveloping the puzzles of Baker
Street with atmospheric coziness. The startling clarity of little grey cells
brings order out of the darkness. The haunted castles of the monster movie
descend into the shadows of our fear. Ghostly spirits wander blustery moors in
cloaks of sea mist, evoking the great and lasting poetry of gloomy gray.
As a design theme, a gray scheme is the reliable choice for
an office environment, but surprisingly a daring one in the home. In home
design, even when it's center stage, gray hides in plain sight. A gray color
scheme is only as assertive as its accents, and a tonal gray scheme cannot be anything
but quiet. In that quietude resides elegance and surety. That's why
professional environments from medical offices to cubicle warrens often utilize
gray. Gray is the truest neutral – often it goes unnoticed, and most people neither
like nor dislike gray.
Gray is restful and soothing, but that doesn’t mean that gray
is not dynamic. Gray counterpoints color, and color accents gray. When
decorating with gray, color becomes thematic, from the marine and gray of that
doctor's waiting room to the lime and gray of a mid-century kitchen. Gray can
be accented to purpose with color, and like all colors, gray trends. It did so
notably in the 1950s, when it was paired with an atomic age smash of ivory,
mint, and hot pink; and again the in the 1980s, grouped among the mall chic of
burgundy, mauve, and onyx.
Gray can provide the context in which unexpected colors truly
pop. With gray to harmonize, coral accents from bathroom linens to patio
awnings look luxe and elegant. Most offbeat colors agree with gray, with the
unexpected quality that reveals placid gray’s playfulness: a scattering of teal
throw pillows on gray flannel sheets, gray cabinet facings enlivened with
jadeite knobs and pulls, mustard blossoms drooping out of a gray vase. Gray is
a common hue for exteriors, detailed with accents from the copper bowl of the
fire pit to the peach paint on the shutters.
It can be stated, not without dissent, that until one can
produce an authoritative achromatic design, one isn’t really yet a designer.
That lifts the fifty shades of gray to the art of design, but it isn’t
limited to fifty. Gray, which some colorists disdain as uninteresting and occasionally
as not a color at all, is complex.
There is great energy in contemplation and once
you begin to differentiate them, shades of gray stand out everywhere one looks.
From the subtle rhythms of degree and shade emanates the essential design
element of mood, and along with brown, gray is the moodiest of colors.
Gray is a discovery, all the more because it waits dependably rather than announcing itself impatiently. Gray was there all along – is there now – truthful and steadfast. Like the steelhead in the waters, like fog rolling inland, gray infiltrates in a still journey. Gray teaches us to look, really look. Gray teaches us to see, really see. As we peer into the profound quietude of gray, we glimpse an infinity of possibilities. But possibilities don’t dwell solely in poetics, and gray teaches us that, too. For, like the industrial girder, gray is practical. Gray wants us not just to envision but to utilize. Gray demands that we attune, and that from attunement, we create. As with the dove’s feather, gray is a high achievement of design.
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