This was the first Color Of The Year in awhile where I just kind of said “MEH”. Mocha is a fine color, and actually varying pastel versions of it are all over the walls in the main area of my home as it makes a great backdrop for hung art. Stand alone, it doesn’t really say much. I was determined to still do a Color Of The Year project, as is my tradition, and it turned out a healthy dose of brown was exactly what this obnoxious thrifted handbag that had been sitting in my closet since June needed!

If I’m doing monochromatic art, I typically go for grayscale, but I do have the odd couple of brown pieces from over the years.

I went through a phase in my early 20s where I just loved making art out of corrugated cardboard. I wrote in my journal once that when I had my own house, I would have one room where it looked like everything was made out of cardboard, and everything would be brown, and I would sit and drink tea and eat those little chocolate creme wafer cookies that look like cardboard as well. I had just watched Michel Gondry’s The Science Of Sleep and became obsessed withe the whimsical, handmade aesthetic and I’m sure this was part of my sudden love of cardboard. Maybe sometimes brown isn’t so bad … It is the color of coffee, tea, and chocolate, after all.