HANNIBAL, Mo. — Nearly 40 years before the TikTok craze, author and visual artist William S. Burroughs encouraged his students to try “walking on colors” as a way to connect memories and to release imagination and creativity.
“Another exercise that is very effective is walking on colors … I was walking on yellow when I saw a yellow amphibious jeep near the corner of 94th Street and Central Park West. It was called the Thing. This reminded me of the Thing I knew in Mexico. He was nearly seven feet tall and had played the Thing in a horror movie of the same name, and everybody called him the Thing, though his name was James Arness. I hadn’t thought about the Thing in 20 years, and would not have thought about him except walking on yellow at that particular moment.”
— From “Ten Years and a Billion Dollars” William S. Burroughs in The Adding Machine: Selected Essays, Arcade Publishing, New York, 1985
Today’s enthusiasts are taking color walks as a way to activate the brain in ways that may reduce stress and increase creative thinking…all positive steps towards improving mental health.
Beginning in March and continuing through May, the Alliance Art Gallery is inviting visitors to take a color walk. As they enter the gallery, they will be encouraged to choose a card with a color on it and to find that color in the artwork in the gallery.
In a press release, Pat Kerns, one of the Alliance Art Gallery artists, hopes that “color walkers will take the opportunity to notice the color in the artwork and also to notice any feelings or memories evoked by that color. Did they notice if that color was used alongside other colors? Did the color or the artwork lead their attention to other times, other places, other people? Were they able to put aside any stress or worry during their color walk?”
The acts of being mindful and of noticing are, like art, improved with practice. The Alliance Art Gallery invites all to this practice by taking a color walk.