W is for White

I’ve doing a very cool program called Self-Magic Woman with the talented Monicka Clio Sakki. It’s all about experimenting with color and photography and self-magic. If that sounds hard to explain, it is. However, it is a LOT of fun.

This past week we worked with the color white. We were encouraged to do some journaling about white and what it means to us. When I think of white, I think of the typical Western connotations of purity, virginity, beginnings, etc. When I did my first “playshoot,” a video/selfie session, I discovered Greek goddesses. The way I dressed myself (as seen in an example shot below) reminded me of all the white Greek and Roman statuary out there. Of course, back in the day, those statues were mostly painted in real life colors, but now all we have is the pure white marble. 

To me, white is room for something else. Blank canvases are white: after all, that’s the whole point of the joke painting “polar bears in a snowstorm.” White canvases create space for something new to exist. White space or negative space creates space for the design to shine forth. A new Word document is a white window; a blank notebook has white or white-hued pages. Artists often begin with whiteness.

As a coach, I strive to be “white” in this way: to be a white space for my clients. They begin talking, and in the space of listening they hear themselves. My listening is their blank canvas.

What does white mean to you?