grey matters.

I've realised lately I just love grey. Not the most exciting of shades, often used to describe something, or someone dull and boring.

Picking my outfit this morning, and pairing a cute but simple loose grey top with a crochet detail neckline, with my pillar-box red jeans, got me thinking about why.

Maybe its the sky at the moment, or the industrial landscape I've been growed-up in. I can't get enough of dove-grey eyeshadow to bring out the brown-ness of my eyes, my Bella Swan-esque cable knit gloves, the trusty grey stereo-print hoody my younger brothers covet, nonchalant t-shirts, thermal tights (much less harsh than opaque black), stonewashed grey denim...the list goes on...

I much prefer a grey suit on a man to a black one. One day I hope to decorate my boudoir like a stark, grey side-ward in a lunatic asylum. Serious!

Grey goes with everything, whether spangling up with sequins, metallic knits (like my favourite metallic grey cardi which, you guessed, I can't get enough of!), or gold or silver jewellery which match equally well, or clashed with neon when I like to pretend I'm a bit street.

Lavendery grey is the perfect contrast to the pastels I often paint in. Grey tones in my collages I feel make for evocative subtlety.

'Love Your Bones' mixed media collage, featuring an image I photoshopped of the Catacombs in Paris.

I was afraid of colour for a while. Not in my dress sense you must understand, but in my art. A tutor tried to teach me about colour theory, and advised me that a particular hue should never be selected unless there was a reason, or something symbollic to justify it. I evaded that one -and for a while stuck to a limited palette of black, white, blood red, pale pink, pale yellow and grey. Fortunately I found kitsch, otherwise my aesthetic may have been entirely different!

So here's to grey, and doing it the grey-way, like some of my fellow Folksters...

Clockwise from top left:-

Shades of Grey Hair Pins by Bina Geyer

Grey Knitted Bird Bag by Jayney Mac

Grey Wool Beret by Imogen's Imagination

Little Silver Grey Pony by The Hunny Bunny Company

There may be the odd one or two silver-grey hairs in my fringe (hey, my job is stressful, and I am nearly 30!), which I am not loving, and which are promptly plucked out, but by the most part to me grey isn't boredom, it's beauty.