Defend the Indefensible - Southwestern Color Schemes

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http://www.citivu.com/rc/nitenday/ep116b-l.jpg

Watery pastels, limp teals, dusky peaches... the colors of Rent-to-Own furniture and crappy western 90's strip malls. Still seen in some Chevy's restaurants. (Ironically, most Navajo art used bold primary colors and blacks.)

I think of sad, shitty, badly decorated apartment complexes stretching to the horizon... the colors of a slow boring death.

― andy, Wednesday, 18 August 2004 20:25 (twenty-one years ago)

I like it!

― adam. (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 20:26 (twenty-one years ago)

That is not a defense.

― oops (Oops), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 20:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Done well, with a touch of subtlety, it can be okay. But only if actually in the Southwest.

― oops (Oops), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 20:31 (twenty-one years ago)

ihttp://www.midnightglamour.com/i/COATS,%20WRAPS/MVC-882S.JPG

LIKE THIS?

― andy, Wednesday, 18 August 2004 20:34 (twenty-one years ago)

― adam. (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 20:36 (twenty-one years ago)

I like adobe walls though.

― adam. (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 20:36 (twenty-one years ago)

I think the color scheme is more a victim of your (and our collective) associations with it--the crappy strip malls and timeshares in Taos you mentioned.

Check out this faux southwest banality:
http://www.rentalsexpress.com/photos/property/1823/3.jpg
and
http://www.southwestheaven.com/cat-pubimages/kokopelli.pillow986284136-175-194.jpg

How did this permutation from color schemes which do in fact existin nature happen?

― robots in love (robotsinlove), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 20:58 (twenty-one years ago)

I prefer darker:

http://pop.suscom.net/~carrigon/gamepics/angelbed1.jpg

― Harold Media (kenan), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 21:04 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2003/Apr-22-Tue-2003/photos/southwest.jpg

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 21:06 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.shanaberger.com/airlines/southwest_b737_d.jpg

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 21:06 (twenty-one years ago)

I defend this *ROWR*

http://www.whoiszoefitzgerald.com/crit.%20eval./southwest%20advert.jpg

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 21:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Passengers are advised to refrain from making cat noises during takeoff and landing.

― Harold Media (kenan), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 21:10 (twenty-one years ago)

The first two color schemes on this thread are not really "Southwestern." They are ugly northern colors that someone has cut into faux-Southwestern patterns and tried to pawn off on unsuspecting coastal types.

Possibly it is a matter of associations: I grew up on both sides of the Colorado / New Mexico border, and I have nothing but nice feelings about genuine Southwestern looks.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 21:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Like, it's telling that the associations in the thread-question are all of these non-Southwestern things; it's a bit like ragging on ragging on American food because you had a weird hamburger in Jakarta.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 21:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Pardon me, I meant "ragging on ragging on ragging on" American food.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 21:14 (twenty-one years ago)

nabisco otm. there's a lot of schlock, but it's derived from great art

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 21:18 (twenty-one years ago)

This is a bit schlock, but it's the right colors:

http://candywitcher.tripod.com/Taos-Pueblo-VIII.jpg

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 21:20 (twenty-one years ago)

"dusky peach"

http://www.riograndegallery.com/RcGorman/redbird.jpg

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 21:22 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah those colors are nice. the bad motifs resemble a Cosby sweater.

― oops (Oops), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 21:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I think the thing is that they're built, aesthetically, for a natural background that's super-different from not just modern cities but just about any other type of environment. It's flat scrubby rust-colored desert, walls the same adobe color, etc.; it's a very different background.

I would stay and post as many nice-Southwetern things as I could find, but I have to go home and make dinner.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 21:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Okay, I'm not attacking Anasazi pottery shards or whatever, I'm talking about the dated color combination of whitewashed pastels and earthtones that is now known loosely as "southwestern"... And I don't care if it's a tiny quaint adobe church or a Church's Chicken, peach and turquoise DO NOT belong together.

― andy, Wednesday, 18 August 2004 21:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Sure, if you're talking about "Bad 1980s Southwestern Explosion Faux-Pastel 'New Jersey Fiesta' Bullshit Housewife Cheap-Comforter-Spicer-Upper," well, clearly that's not so hot. I'm just saying, the core of the thing is nice and natural, it just happens to have had a horrible schlock conversion in other directions GIVE IT SOME SYMPATHY FOR IT IS MY HOME.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 21:28 (twenty-one years ago)

'k.

You know what I really hate, though? Wall-to-wall carpeting. My dad's house has it in the bathroom -- that's especially bad.

― Harold Media (kenan), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 21:35 (twenty-one years ago)

This is southwestern:

http://digilander.libero.it/sarodb/usaparks/foto/co/gg2.jpg

so is this: http://data2.itc.nps.gov/nature/photos/Storm%20over%20Painted%20Desert.JPG

and this: http://www.die-motorrad-tourer.de/home/touren/usa/newmexico/grafiken/painted%20desert.jpg

This is not: http://www.fabricstodyefor.com/fabrics/images/cfn/southwest/southwest.jpg

― luna (luna.c), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 21:35 (twenty-one years ago)

oooh.

― Harold Media (kenan), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 21:36 (twenty-one years ago)

(Yay Luna! Southwest-Color-Lovers unite like Voltron.)

(NB there is a certain slight garishness even to genuine Southwestern looks, but it's not a negative, no more than the garishness of really baroque designs is a negative. It's part of the beauty of both.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 21:40 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.knies.org/airlines/pix/dknies/stl/dk024.jpg

(C'mon, here's the meta-pic everyone wants to see.)

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 21:40 (twenty-one years ago)

This is not:

hmmm

http://www.segura.com/gallery/Telford/galleryimages/SlotPage.jpg
http://www3.sympatico.ca/mharley/i_07753.jpg

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 21:48 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.southwestprops.com/portfolio/themeddecor/southwestern/southwestern/southwestern_southwestern_04.jpg

THIS is what you're defending, you neophyte desert jackals!

― andy, Wednesday, 18 August 2004 21:49 (twenty-one years ago)

quit frontin', Luna. You never slow down past 70 when going through AZ and NM.

― oops (Oops), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 21:52 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.navajospirit.com/!%20NS%20HP%20images/stockings.gif

Santa nibbles at a roasted chipotle pepper as he ascends the adobe chimney...

― andy, Wednesday, 18 August 2004 21:53 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.rexkirbydesign.com/text_donpablos.jpg

I think that Genesis filmed their "Illegal Alien" video in this restaurant.

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 21:53 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.iristour.com.au/perthhotels/images/rydes_hotel_perth_building.jpg

― Dirty Muriel (Autumn Almanac), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 22:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh, that southwest.

― Dirty Muriel (Autumn Almanac), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 22:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Part of what makes Southwestern decor cool is that a little of it goes a long way, but obviously there's room for a lot of abuse - especially when people think that more of everything = better. People don't only abuse southwestern color decor, but tropical deco, neo-colonial, Pacific Northwest, and on and on.

Tropical deco is #1 on my personal hate list. It's great if we're talking about bungalows and vacation motels on Florida's A1A highway, but the post-Miami Viceillogical extreme led people to paint everything in washed-out turquoise and peach with white carpeting. This taste change to "Mexiterranean" (seriously, that's what it's called) coincided with much of the late 80s construction boom in SoCal, resulting in entire communities of fugly houses in Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage, and inland San Diego county.

I'll take the decor in any typical CA/NM/AZ "southwest decor" house profile in Architectural Digest anyday. And the house too.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 22:13 (twenty-one years ago)

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