3. Orange Blues

            I’m starting a drawing, and—because I’m not Frank O’Hara, because my drawing’s not a poem—I have orange in it.  You’re looking at my drawing on your monitor, and—

            And you aren’t seeing the orange I had.

            Depending on your monitor, you might be seeing a different orange, or you might be seeing yellow or brown, or even red.  Happy Fall, Y’all.

            You could go look at my drawing on a different monitor—or you could print the drawing, or throw it out of a projector—but the problem would follow us there:  On a different device, you’d just see a different colour that would still not be the orange I had.

            Or I could have no orange in my drawing to begin with—or in twelve drawings, called ORANGES—but the problem would follow us there too, because there are no absolute colours in the digital medium.  Perhaps you’d see orange if I had blue in my drawing.

            And this problem is unique to us.  If Grace Hartigan or Michael Goldberg were to have orange in a painting, they wouldn’t have to worry what colour you might (not) see in it.