From: J <jeevacation®gmail.com>
To: Faith Kates cz MI
Subject: first draft
Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2018 15:49:20 +0000
" Hey, you know that's purple, right?"
My best friend Jacob was leaning over the picture that I had just finished coloring. We had just
started kindergarten, and there were big Crayola crayons scattered willi-nilli over the table. I was of
course very proud of my drawing; the middle of the paper dominated by a large farmhouse, standing next
to a large stick figure tree. It was I believed framed by an expanse of what I had imagined was a perfect
light blue sky. In its rightful place ie the upper right corner, was the sun.. "why is the sun green?" Jacob
added, genuinely puzzled. followed by - Isn't the sun supposed to be yellow?'
lye recently learned that my being colorblind was less than a one in twenty chance.. According to
the eye specialist that my parents had dragged me to kicking and screaming , ( me not my parents). I
even had difficulty distinguishing the difference between blues and reds. It seems I was born with fewer
green cones in my retina than a normally -sighted person . Though it is not a life threatening disability (I
still cannot get a handicapped parking sticker for my car, seeing the world in essentially black and white
does present some issues . In eighth grade I recall my horror at failing my geography test as the colors on
the map seemed only a shade different—a "lame excuse" according to Ms. Meyer.
As others with some perceptual differences , I have actually enjoyed learning to compensate. For
example I occasionally still paint. some may interpret my painting the sun green as a sign of youthful
creativity so I try to limit myelf to sketching in mostly pencil and ink. I deconstruct objects into simple
shapes, notice the ways the shadows fall, and convey moods through perspective and cross-hatching
rather than what some others may use colors and tones. Knowing that I see colors differently
unfortunately makes them an unreliable resource for conveying meaning. However I don't feel
constrained or less expressive by only working in black and white. I view the fact that as my vision may
not work as well as it y might, I have developed other senses to compensate for their deficiency .
Being colorblind also gives me a rare insight into the nature of beauty. We are taught to believe that
as equal human beings we must share the same aesthetic sense. We are meant to appreciate or anything
by Van Gogh, but in reality, we all actually see the world only as we see it.. Most of the magazines that
target students my age assume that we all want to look the same When love when people now point out
that I am using purple instead of blue, I nod as only an artist could.. The world doesn't change; it is just
that we each perceive it according to the number of red, blue and green cones at the back of our eyes.
So I would propose a new nomenclature I am no longer colorblind, or color-ignorant, or even color-
challenged. I am simply an artist. It's the great lesson I have gained from my condition.. My kindergarten
self may have been crushed to have my friends critique my masterpiece, but today they recognize my
unique talents There are, lam told, a lot of really ugly color combinations out there, and I luckily cannot
see any of them.
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