The colors bring us to paint. People talk about colors and artists but nobody talks about paint, unless you’re at the paint store.
And then you just talk about flat, eggshell, or semi-gloss or, if dithering, maybe satin or eggshell for chrissakes. But instead of lollygagging on the surface, you should go deep and ask the guy at the paint store, "What is paint epistemologically? Teleologically?"
The paint guy looks longingly at the display of flat and semigloss.
"Good God, man," you grab his ankles. "You’re selling the stuff. You’ve got to know what it essentially IS."
You would then show him this week’s Obscure Wikipedia Friday Favorite from Flossophy Friday:
And he would say, "The customer is always wrong. That’s why we’re here. An article on ‘Paint’ is hardly obscure."
And you, having read the article, amazed that humans used paint a hundred thousand years ago, decide to spill the extra free bonus Second Obscure Wikipedia Friday Favorite:
And you say, "I’ll take a gallon of the Dangerous Asphalt Sky Blue #WTF-666 in exterior semi-gloss, and, by the way, that John Rand guy invented paint in tubes in 1841, which revolutionized painting. And by the way, that IS obscure. Because people don’t talk about paint."
And the guy at the store says, "This begs the question*: why would anyone want to look at a painting of the thing when they can look at the actual thing itself?"
On impulse, you say, "Gimme a five gallon bucket of the Philosophically Saturated Scarlet Tincture XIII. High Gloss. Suddenly I want to render the bucket on canvas."
The guy nods. He says, "Paint. Very plastic material. In the good sense."
