A Lesson in Green

A Lesson in Green

Twenty or so idealistic young women and a couple of young men gathered for a spring semester of Art for Elementary majors.  We were teachers-to-be, not artists, and the professor’s role was to help us know enough about art and its appreciation to teach ait in our classrooms.  She was an artist and teacher, but I did not realize at the time what a profound affect her creative instruction would have on me. 

 We practiced painting, drawing, sculpting, and even created woodcuts. Identifying great pieces of art and something about the artists who created them helped us appreciate the more famous artists and their work. 

However, the most important lesson for me came in March with the arrival of spring.  Our professor’s advice to her not particularly artistic students was to look – look and really see.  Look at the shape of things, look at lines and curves, look at color.  The professor gave us one long term project for spring – look for green.  That’s a great assignment in Minnesota because we’re always looking for the smallest sign of green in the spring.  Then she added the caveat that we should start looking at how many different shades of green we observed. 

That assignment has affected me for most of the years since, and this spring I have been particularly aware of the shades of green in Georgia. The photos that accompany this post reflect my challenge to see green in its many nuances and shades, tones and hues.  My new habit of walking takes me outside in my apartment complex or to a local park daily. The plantings and landscapes are beautiful, and I celebrate every new flowering tree or shrub.  The flowers come firs,t and the leaves follow, often as the flowers fade.  It has been a wonder to observe the bright yellow-green shades that deepen into a rich green or the bush that makes a reverse change. 

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My set of 50 colored pencils provides eight pencils in its collection ranging from yellow-green to turquoise green. It doesn’t have the reddish green of the leaves I observed tonight nor does it have the deep green of a pine tree or the soft gray green of a fuzzy leaf.  Green cannot be reduced to eight shades. I have tried to count them, but my assignment or mission is not to count but to notice.  My conclusion is that it would be impossible to count them as their number is really not finite.  After all green is simply the mixing of blue and yellow, but it then mixes with red to create other hues and shades that are still different. 

 “Why?” Why so many shades of green?  Scientific answers might tell me how all those shades are created, but not why.  Might not eight have been enough? I see the variety of greens as a gift from my Creator God that  provides joy and delight to my heart and soul and is reminder of His love to provide such variety and creativity for us to enjoy.  As humans we have labeled green a sign of life and growth. Within that color of life, the great variety and purpose of the shades reminds me that God celebrates diversity, not sameness. 

Just as He gave vegetation an infinite variety of shades and hues, He has made every person unique.  Each has a special beauty that no other has. God calls us to see that beauty in one another and to reach out in love as He has done, not only in creation, but primarily in the gift of His Son.

A you walk your path, look and see – see the uniqueness of every landscape by opening your vision to the green of the trees, the blue of the sky, the white of the clouds and celebrate all the beauty, all the color, all the diversity. See it and appreciate it in people, too.