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The New Blue
Written By: Donna Rhodes | Issue: 2018/05 - May
Who knew? There’s a new blue. Just when you thought Mother Earth had no more glorious pigments to cough up, a dramatic color was created … quite by accident.
YInMn was discovered in a lab in 2009. A student at Oregon State combined yttrium, indium, and manganese oxides in a furnace. When the team unveiled the results, it was an intense blue, so magnificent it was instantly patented by the University. Guess who was first in line to buy the color rights. Yep. Crayola. And it’s now a crayon box staple named Bea, short for Bluetiful.
Our inner six-year-old will dive for Bea every time a new Crayola box is popped. But sadly, for every winning color addition, a golden oldie must take leave. Bluetiful replaces Daffodil. Sniff. It’s just a crayon, right? But I’ll miss ol’ Daffy. Why is it I am instantly nostalgic for what was, even if I never used it?
I pray there’s hope for the cast-offs. Maybe old waxies go to retirement homes or crayon orphanages. Perhaps they get smelted, turned into marbled blocks of recycled wax. Most likely, they’re accidentally crunched under foot. Eventually they’re Hoovered-up, clogging the hoses, overheating the vacuum motor, instigating a cadenza of yellow catastrophes. Oh, the humanity. Oh, the house-cleaner’s hissies.
While I mourn for Daffy, other artists, particularly potters, are riding the blue wave. The last blue, discovered 200 years ago, was cobalt. Cobalt is extremely expensive, which explains why you don’t see that many dark blue ceramic pieces. Since YInMn was created in a furnace, thus conditioned to high temps, it is a stable pigment for glazes. Bluetiful clayware is on our horizon.
I have yet to meet Bea, hover her in my trembling fingers above a blank surface that begs to be sky or sea. But once my hand envelops her rich, vibrant blueness, no doubt I shall be her latest conquest. I’ll sing the blues, the new blues, while poor daffodil dissolves into a waxy glop of Gone.
