Shades of Brown

  1. YMCA Camp Jones Gulch, nestled in the Santa Cruz mountains, surrounded by redwood trees. My home away from home for seven summers, from 12-19 years old. Whenever a kid would poop in the water, a counselor would announce “CODE BROWN” over the walkie talkies and someone would come drain the pool.
  2. My first summer as a camper was 1999. I chose horses as my specialty. My assigned horse for the week was a very tall stallion named “Alberta,” like the Canadian province. He had a gorgeous chocolatey brown coat and a less than friendly temperament. I never worked with horses again after that year.
  3. During my final summer as a counselor, in 2006, I stole hot chocolate for my campers on their last night. I didn’t actually steal it. I arranged it with my coordinating counselor but I lied and told the kids I stole it to make the treat seem, if not earned, then at least hard-won. We mixed the packets with hot water, making even Nestlé’s canned hot chocolate seem fancy. Some of the girls poured the brown powder, sickly sweet, straight into their mouths.
  4. Another camp favorite: S’mores! Stark white marshmallows which change color over the fire and dark Hershey’s chocolate are sandwiched by honey graham crackers, their golden-brown tones match the toasted marshmallows.
  5. Reminds me of dipping churros in hot melted chocolate in a café along La Rambla in Barcelona, Spain.
  6. I studied in Madrid in the spring of 2007. My class took a long weekend trip to Barcelona. After spending the day with my fellow students, I took leave of them and brought my camera to the pier and shot photos of skaters and graffiti on the boardwalk. I was wearing a chocolatey brown sweatshirt and brown jacket combo, because it was February, but the sun was hot. 
  7. In Gregory Snyder’s book Graffiti Lives, he talks about going out to take photos of graffiti in New York City in the mid 1990’s. Snyder tells tales of roaming underground through the city’s subway system, brown and tan stones underfoot, looking for interesting pieces to shoot.  My interest in graffiti was sparked by my brother, who used to write himself. My earliest memory of shooting graffiti was sometime in the late 90’s, probably in Paris, France.
  8. On a 2012 trip to Europe, my boyfriend and I wandered through central tourist Barcelona, heading toward the Museu Picasso. I seek out all Pablo Picasso paintings because my dad went through a phase of reading every book about Picasso and covering all the walls in the house with his paintings. Picasso’s cubism paintings look muddled with all of the brown tones until you get close enough to see the shape of things. The museum is housed in five buildings, expansive, with a huge collection of works. Despite the size of their collection, my favorite of Picasso’s cubist paintings is The Architect’s Table, which actually lives at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. I love that tableau in particular because of the way he worked Gertrude Stein’s calling card, which she had left on his table, into the painting.
  9. After the Picasso museum we grabbed beers. We drank light golden brown Stella Artois–I remember the shape of the glass. The bar was a tiny hole in the wall. We wanted to use the wifi.
  10. “Shine up my old brown shoes, I’ll put on a brand new shirt / I’ll get home early from work if you say that you’ll love me.” I sang along to this tune for years before realizing that Letters to Cleo covered it for 10 Things I Hate About You; that it was actually a Cheap Trick song. At 12 years old, I had never heard of Cheap Trick, but I had the lyrics memorized. I got my own pair of brown shoes (well, boots) and I wore them everywhere on that 2012 trip.
  11. I used to spend a lot of time planning my outfit around my shoes matching my top. Since getting those brown boots, my wardrobe has shifted to more muted tones. I love brown and navy together.
  12. The last time I visited Paris, I bought a blue canvas purse with brown leather accents. It matches my boots and my brown leather belt.
  13. On that same trip, I was shooting a freelance assignment for the tea and coffee trade magazine, Fresh Cup. They were doing a feature on the evolution of coffee culture in Paris. I visited seven cafés and took at least two thousand photos. One of my photos made the cover of the April 2016 issue, of a gorgeous looking latte on a many slatted wooden table. The warm brown tones of the table and coffee are punctuated by a bright yellow-green cup.
  14. France is home to many African and middle eastern immigrants. I often think about the country’s history of colonization and the struggles for freedom which ensued. “The Battle of Algiers” always comes to mind. My mom did a presentation on this film in a French class that we took together back in 2011.
  15. Albert Camus was born in Algeria, but he did not have brown skin. I was living in Spain when I read The Stranger. I remember feeling depressed and uninterested in the main character, and at the time I disliked the book. Now I understand how effective Camus’ writing was. He was able to arouse such a strong response, however negative, and I have come to appreciate that about the book.
  16. Frantz Fanon lived in Algeria for a time, and he wrote about racism and colonization. In Hamid Dabashi’s book Brown Skin, White Masks (a play on Fanon’s book titled Black Skin, White Masks) he writes about neocolonialism and how it is a cleverly disguised the oppression of brown people, similar to what Fanon talks about in his book. Dabashi quotes Fanon: “The black man wants to be white.”
  17. When I told my mom about this, she exclaimed “Brown is beautiful!” When pressed for more information, she replied, “Brown is the color of earth, from which all life force springs.”
  18. Years before we took French classes together, my mom and I moved to Chattanooga Street in San Francisco’s Noe Valley neighborhood in 2002, after she returned from her sabbatical abroad. I had recently inherited a brown Carhartt jacket from my older brother, and I wore it EVERYWHERE.
  19. My friend Frick used to poke fun at my jacket, always asking me, “What Can Brown Do For You?” which was the UPS slogan at the time. He lived on the next block. I remember his dad had a collection of old cameras on a table in their foyer.
  20. Frick committed suicide in 2003 and some years later I gave away the jacket. I wish I had kept it. I still think about him when I see a UPS truck, even though they have since retired that slogan.

 

Bibliography

  1. Snyder, Gregory J. Graffiti Lives: Beyond the Tag in New York’s Urban Underground. New York: New York University Press, 2009. Pp 93.
  2. Dabashi, Hamid. Brown Skin, White Masks. London: Pluto, 2011. 24.
  3. Anne Gamboni (retired teacher) in conversation with the author (Jessica Copi). November 2016.
  4. The Battle of Algiers. Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo. Produced by Antonio Musu and Yacef Saadi. By Franco Solinas and Gillo Pontecorvo. Performed by Brahim Haggiag and Yacef Saadi. United States: Allied Artists Corporation, 1969.
  5. Nielsen, Rick of Cheap Trick. In Color. Epic 50680. 1977. 7-inch single.
  6. Picasso, Pablo. The Architect’s Table. 1912. MoMA, New York City. 28 5/8 x 23 1/2″. Oil on canvas mounted on panel.
  7. Brones, Anna. “The Paris Coffee Revolution.” Fresh Cup Magazine. Vol 25, no 4. (2016) 58-72.
  8. Advertisement. “What Can Brown Do For You?” The Wall Street Journal. September 13, 2010. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704621204575487840032479922

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