For the month of October, I wanted to start sharing some of my favorite quotes by women. If you’ve noticed in the top corner of the header, there are quotes that randomly change when the page refreshes. These are from my insanely huge collection of quotes that I have collected over the years. I like quotes. I just love it when people can capture a huge idea or an inspirational thought and then simplify it in just a few words. It amazes me.
To kick things off, I thought I’d start with a quote that is attributed to one of my favorite singers of all time, but in fact it actually came from the late Minnie Pearl as Amy Grant tells us:
“I’m thinking about a conversation we had years ago,” she says. “It was after Minnie’s stroke, and she was bedridden, but this was one of her lucid days. We were talking about light and dark. She was saying, ‘They’re both a part of life. For instance, what do you think is the most important color on an artist’s palette?’ I said I didn’t know. She said, ‘Black, of course. Without black, no color has any depth. But if you mix black with everything, suddenly there’s shadow — no, not just shadow, but fullness. You’ve got to be willing to mix black into your palette if you want to create something that’s real.'”
I just love that quote. As a designer, I love any kind of artistic references but this one is especially moving. In order to be real, we have to mix the dark in with the light. In order to have any kind of depth (think maturity, character), we have to experience the bad along with the good. If we haven’t, we are merely a bunch of pastel colors on a canvas with no shadow, no depth to our character. Without some black mixed into our lives, we’re shallow. We’re not real.
Oh and in case you have no clue who Amy is, here’s your chance to sample her work…Yesterday, Amy Grant released a Greatest Hits Special Edition CD with a bonus DVD containing 5 videos. It actually arrived in my mailbox a few days ago (thanks to the perks of being in the fan club – the only fan club I subscribe to), but I’ve not even had a chance to break the seal on it until this morning. I decided to shred the cellophane and pop the DVD into my drive for a little inspiration. I had forgotten how awesome the “Lead Me On” video is! Fortunately, YouTube has a copy of it for me to share with you. The scenery is just fantastic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNl7Vo_mt0A
26 comments
gretchen
Thanks Reba! That was a great review and your pictures were awesome. :x
reba
Great entry. I have always loved this quote. The video is also one of my favorites! It is just so pretty.
I just did a series of posts on Amy. A review, photos from events, etc. inrebasworld.com
imani
…clever…8-|
gretchen
Actually, I’m left-handed which means I’m always in my right mind. ;)
imani
lol, interesting.
Gretchen there is no way you actually think that unless you’re not in your right mind. So i get it, you want to end the convo. Great quote, i just dont like when ppl associate black w/negativity. But honestly, at this point I dont even care anymore. So whatev…
Kel1
In the quote above by Minnie Pearl (as stated by Amy Grant), I thought that the color black was referred to as having “depth.” I didn’t find it negative at all.
Gretchen, you’ve mentioned storm clouds, etc, and imani has said that even those things can be positive. I agree with both of those. In the quote above, I felt she was referring to the fact that even with storm clouds (which some associate with negativity), there is rain, which is a positive thing. She was, in my opinion, saying we need to take all of our experiences and create depth in our lives. She was saying there’s no use in being shallow. At least, that is what it speaks to me.
gretchen
Yes.
imani
If you set your mind to it do you think you could become a supermodel?
gretchen
Yes – I do believe people can do anything they set their mind to do. That is not being naive. One needs to look no further than the technology in front of our faces to realize that people are amazing and creative beings. The limits we set are our own and are in no way permanent roadblocks to what we can achieve if we truly believe in ourselves.
imani
of course i read it otherwise i wouldn’t have asked my original question which was, why do people feel the need to associate black with negativity?
lol limits? really? or is it just being realistic. do you believe there are things you cant do or are you actually naive enough to believe you can do everything? Whenever I do have them I want my children to work hard towards goals, and if they cant achieve them they need some way to realize it and either move on or try something new instead of continuously doing the same things trying to get different results. Which will happen if they don’t understand that there are some things they just cannot do.