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Chromosphere: The Color Theory Podcast

Arts & Culture Podcasts

This podcast centers on my research and understanding of color, color usage, and optics as they relate to theories of human color perception in the making of visual art and design. By Ed Charbonneau, an artist (drawing & painting focus), and an adjunct faculty member in the Foundation, Fine Arts, and Creative Entrepreneurship Departments at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. (Content expressed does not reflect the views of the Minneapolis College of Art & Design)

Location:

United States

Description:

This podcast centers on my research and understanding of color, color usage, and optics as they relate to theories of human color perception in the making of visual art and design. By Ed Charbonneau, an artist (drawing & painting focus), and an adjunct faculty member in the Foundation, Fine Arts, and Creative Entrepreneurship Departments at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. (Content expressed does not reflect the views of the Minneapolis College of Art & Design)

Language:

English

Contact:

6512604784


Episodes
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A Sherlock Holmes Color Theory Odyssey

4/21/2025
More background on competing histories of color harmony, and a reprise of episodes from Season 1, Color Theory Wars parts 1 and 2. Emily Noyes Vanderpoel, Color Problems: A Practical Manual for the Lay Student of Color, Sacred Bones Records publisher Newton's Optiks, 1704, Project Gutenberg ebook Goethe's Theory of Colors, 1810 (1840 translated by Charles Lock Eastlake) Project Gutenberg ebook Schopenhauer's On Vision and Colors, 1816, AbeBooks Spinal Tap, Jazz Odyssey, 1984 Send us a text

Duration:01:22:10

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Turquoise and Yellow: Measuring the Gap in My Knowledge in Parsecs

3/19/2025
Guardian website: Do you see blue or green? This viral test plays with color perception Colour Literacy Project: Resources Science How Stuff Works: Earth's Oldest Color was Pink Martin Bricelj Baraga (cyanometer art installation): Cyanometer Color categories in thought and language, edited by C. L. Hardin and Luisa Maffi. Cambridge University Press, New York: 1997 Encyclopedia of Color Science and technology (UC Irvine): World Color Survey Space.com: Parsec Send us a text

Duration:00:40:31

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A Mary Gartside and Emily Noyes Vanderpoel Project

2/17/2025
Sharing a project I designed based upon Mary Gartside and Emily Noyes Vanderpoel's color methodologies. Try it for yourself, or with a class. Link to project description (Google Doc): Color Project: Mary Gartside and Emily Noyes Vanderpoel Link to video of presentation on Gartside and Vanderpoel's methodologies (on Vimeo): MCAD 2022 Faculty Biennial Forum Presentation by Ed Charbonneau Send us a text

Duration:00:43:51

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Color and Emotion

1/20/2025
Color and Emotion, the topic of a 5-week online course I have designed and will be teaching in March/April 2025 for the Continuing Education Department of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Color and Emotion: Experience and Aesthetic Awareness Online course, five weeks Wednesday evenings March 5 - April 9 (off March 19) 7-9:30 pm CT Course website Mark Rothko at MoMA Michelangelo Sistine Chapel Michelangelo Doni Tondo, Uffizi Galleries Coca-Cola and Santa Claus Crane bathroom tiles and fixtures Auntie Mame, 1958 Movie Trailer The Velvet Underground, Who Loves the Sun, Loaded, 1970 Send us a text Podcast website with access to all episodes also at Chromosphere: The Color Theory Podcast

Duration:00:45:44

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Camouflage

12/16/2024
Welcome to Season 4! Lost and Found: Abbott Thayer and The Study of Camouflage. Martin Stevens Dazzle Camouflage. Wikipedia Neuroanatomy, Retina. Navid Mahabadi and Yasir Al Khalil, NIH, Aug. 8, 2023 The Confetti Illusion: This optical illusion tricks you into seeing different colors. How does it work? Nicoletta Lanse, Live Science, May 19, 2021 The ‘Confetti Illusion’ Makes Fruit Appear Riper Than It Really Is. Katharina Menne, Scientific American, Aug. 19, 2024 Send us a text Podcast website with access to all episodes also at Chromosphere: The Color Theory Podcast

Duration:00:50:52

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TV Party Tonight

6/11/2024
The final episode of Season 3. A reflection on the past three seasons. The Book of Colour Concepts, Alexandra Loske and Sarah Lowengard, Taschen 2024 Color Theory: A Critical Introduction, Aaron Fine, Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2021 Magenta + Green = Blue? Instagram video reel Black Flag, TV Party, 1982 Send us a Text Message. Please find more information to each episode on the Chromosphere website.

Duration:00:59:07

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Interview with Gamma Jeanne: I Love Blue

5/14/2024
Interview with Gamma Jeanne; a departure from our more in-depth discussions of color theory. Jeanne's career as an artist spans over nine decades and includes working with acrylic paints in the 1940s and being at the center of department store design in the 1950s. Our conversation is wide-ranging as it addresses an artist's inner drive to create and form connections with people. Relevant links: The Terrazzo Jungle By Malcolm Gladwell The New Yorker March 7, 2004 Victor Gruen; Gruen Associates Southdale Center Edina, Minnesota, USA Gruen (formerly The Gruen Transfer) Australian Broadcast Corporation Send us a Text Message. Please find more information to each episode on the Chromosphere website.

Duration:00:53:23

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The Eclipse: Purkinje Shift Reprise

4/8/2024
CNN online article: Wear red and green to experience the Purkinje effect during the total solar eclipse Send us a Text Message. Please find more information to each episode on the Chromosphere website.

Duration:00:27:47

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Interview with Luanne Stovall: A New 21st Century Color Literacy Paradigm

3/12/2024
Luanne Stovall is an artist and color theorist with an MFA in painting from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. She attended the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture (New York City), and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (Skowhegan, Maine). Luanne is a member of the Steering Committee of the global Colour Literacy Project and a visiting lecturer in the School of Design and Creative Technologies at the University of Texas in Austin. Currently she is teaching Color Literacy as an upper level interdisciplinary course in the School of Design and Creative Technologies at the University of Texas at Austin. She has taught color courses and workshops in many locations including UT Austin, The Contemporary Austin; School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Wellesley College, MA; and MIT Sloan School of Business. Her paintings and works on paper have been exhibited widely, and are in private and public collections, including the Art Museum of South Texas; El Paso Museum of Art; Blanton Museum, Austin, TX; Moakley Cancer Care Center, Boston; and the Estee Lauder Collection. Luanne’s website: https://www.luannestovall.com/ The Colour Literacy Project, Steering Committee member: https://colourliteracy.org/ Inter-Society Color Council, Board of Directors member; Team leader, Fluorescent Fridays https://www.iscc.org/ 2023 International Colour Association (AIC), volume 33, Special issue on contributions by the Colour Literacy Project Team: https://aic-color.org/journal-issues Luanne's contribution to the 2023 AIC volume 33: Prologue: one artist's journey from traditional colour theory to the Colour Literacy Project (PDF) University of Texas Color Literacy course Designed as four modules: University website: AET Courses (Search under the Upper Division tab.) Flower Color Theory, by Darroch and Michael Putnam Send us a Text Message. Please find more information to each episode on the Chromosphere website.

Duration:01:17:53

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Interview with Suyao Tian: A Journey into Color

2/13/2024
A conversation with artist, Suyao Tian exploring her process as a painter and her personal approaches to using color. Please find more information related to this episode here. Send us a Text Message. Please find more information to each episode on the Chromosphere website.

Duration:00:45:11

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Interview with Jon Reischl: Memory, Perception, and Experience

1/9/2024
A conversation with Jon Rieschl. Please find additional resources to this episode here. Jon Reischl is a visual artist and designer specializing in mixed-media and oil painting. He has shown work locally in the Twin Cities and the greater metro area as well as regionally at venues throughout the Midwest. A graduate of St. Paul’s College of Visual Arts (RIP), He works out of Rock 9 Art Studio, located in the heart of the Creative Enterprise Zone. Jon lives on St. Paul’s East Side with his lovely wife Debra and their trusty beagle. Send us a Text Message. Please find more information to each episode on the Chromosphere website.

Duration:01:08:18

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Interview with Sebastián Wilson: The Mystery of Color

12/11/2023
Sebastián Wilson is a photographer living in Santiago, Chile. He studied architecture which has a clear influence on his work both on the graphic sense, and on the way he observes and portrays light. For links and resources related to this episode, please see the Chromosphere episode webpage. Send us a Text Message. Please find more information to each episode on the Chromosphere website.

Duration:01:05:06

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Interview with Dr. David Briggs: Understanding and Applying Colour

11/14/2023
Dr. David Briggs has been teaching classes on colour for more than 20 years, and currently teaches colour, drawing and painting at the National Art School and the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia. For links and resources related to this episode, please see the Chromosphere episode webpage. Send us a Text Message. Please find more information to each episode on the Chromosphere website.

Duration:00:49:35

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Interview with Jeremy Szopinski: Abstract Landscape Painting

10/10/2023
I interview painter Jeremy Szopinski who is a good friend and longtime studio mate. For more information about the podcast and Jeremy's artworks, check out this website link. Send us a Text Message. Please find more information to each episode on the Chromosphere website.

Duration:00:39:30

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Mary Gartside and the Colour Ball: A Correction

4/24/2023
The final episode of Season 2; includes a correction to the Mary Gartside episode from Season 1. The first version of this episode erroneously stated a connection between Mary Gartside and the writing of Johann von Goethe. This new episode was recorded as a correction and published on April 24, 2023. Mary Gartside was a painter, teacher, and color theorist who lived in England from 1755-1819. More information about Gartside can be found at: The Winterthur Museum's Program in American Material Culture, Sussex Research Online, and Medium. Send us a Text Message. Please find more information to each episode on the Chromosphere website.

Duration:00:30:48

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Focal Points and the Roots of Abstraction, part 1

3/28/2023
Part one of a reading of an essay I am writing, Focal Points and the Roots of Abstraction. Human color vision adapts to the changing environment in many ways. Pupils dilate and constrict in order to regulate the amount of light entering the eye. The lens either bunches up or flattens out to change its shape while focusing light wavelengths along the spectral band at different proximities to the retina. Cone cells, and other light sensitive cells, perform plus-or-minus gains in activity to achieve what is known as color constancy, allowing humans to maintain a persistent perception of colors within changing light sources. Adaptations such as these take place at different rates of time, some more quickly than others; some more involuntarily than others, which may relate to how focal points form and dissipate within a visual field. This essay explores how adaptations of the visual system may generate focal points, and how representing light as colors informed the roots of abstraction. Send us a Text Message. Please find more information to each episode on the Chromosphere website.

Duration:00:33:44

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Red, White, Gray, and Black

2/28/2023
Are nearly all the cars and trucks in your area either red, white, gray, or black? Discussion of red colors pairing to neutral colors as a color scheme. Send us a Text Message. Please find more information to each episode on the Chromosphere website.

Duration:00:29:59

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No Science and No Math

1/24/2023
A review of a listener letter. Send us a Text Message. Please find more information to each episode on the Chromosphere website.

Duration:00:45:27

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Color Theory and the Grocery Store

12/27/2022
A walk through the grocery store in search of the analogous split-complementary color scheme as well as other palettes. Send us a Text Message. Please find more information to each episode on the Chromosphere website.

Duration:00:19:25

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Harmony part 3: A New Canon

11/29/2022
Part 3 of 3: The final installment, A New Canon, places the work of color theorists, Mary Gartside and Emily Noyes Vanderpoel in historical context so as to examine how their inclusion (and by extension, additional underrepresented color theorists and practitioners) may help us to understand how we may expand our contemporary approaches to color usage in all creative visual fields. Send us a Text Message. Please find more information to each episode on the Chromosphere website.

Duration:00:16:09