Pale peach color, like the petals of the dried ranunculus that lives in our windowsill. I tried to make a painting of this flower but couldn’t capture the feeling of wanting to fall into the delicate, velvety layers. This color has a luminosity that makes me think of the light at golden hour — the rocks of the Mojave bathed in that fleeting magic. Soft and light like the fresh helados de melón in Tijuana, it also reminds me of the once brightly painted stucco walls of Los Angeles, an echo of cheery optimism, softened yet perceptible.

This is the color of earth, of warm sand and desert mesas. The mesquite tree has bright yellow flowers and seed pods that twist down toward the earth. We were in Cathedral City, California the last time I saw a mesquite tree. I remember the warmth of that day and how the San Jacinto Mountains looked in the hazy afternoon light. This dusty caramel color is like that warm afternoon light.

I drove to Morro Bay to shoot video for a project, slept in my car and woke up early to thick fog over the meadowy sea cliffs. This is the color of the light when the sun started to burn through the fog. Sagebrush green — the green tiles in the bottom of the fountain at the center of the praça, as seen through the rippling water. River rocks and beach grass.

Meditating this morning as a got to the studio I had a vision of the golden sap of the pine tree; the internal beauty and power that resides at the core flowing through my body too. Nourishing, healing, desirous resin. That internal reserve and the expression as the needles that can go in so many directions, shooting out, and all are beautiful and perfect. The color is like pine the silvery underside of a fir tree. Like the Pacific Ocean from the height of a bluff on a stormy day or a distant mountain range at daybreak.

A rich, bold blue. A few years ago a made a zine titled How Blue is Your Love? that contained images of rocks I have collected next to fragments of song lyrics that reference the color blue. Blue can be calming, romantic, melancholic. Sky and sea.