I am thrilled to introduce Marcia Sutherland Podhorecki. Marcia is a fun loving friend, a creative interior designer and lives an energetic life surrounded with color. After analyzing her colors as Bright Spring and learning more about her entrepreneurial spirit and various businesses, I was inspired to create this Colorful Lives Blog series. Her spontaneous nature and love of pops of color is evident in her wardrobe, her design sensibility and her home decor. She perfectly captures the spirit of the Bright Spring personality!
When I met Kerry nearly 10 years ago, I felt an immediate connection. Her father had been my personal and corporate attorney and he always said that we should meet, that we would hit it off. He was right in so many ways. I learned about her business and how colors really can affect how you feel, how you see the world and how you react to experiences and people.
I was anxious to have her do my colors and was very surprised to learn that I was a Bright Spring, as I was prone to wear browns and burgundies, blacks and greys. Once I sat in the chair and she began to drape me with the Bright Spring colors the transformation was immediate. We wasted no time going shopping for new, Bright Spring wardrobe pieces to embrace my newfound palette.
As owner of Quality Office Environments, I am fortunate to work with a talented and varied group of interior designers and architects and help them to select the best pieces of furniture, textiles, and color schemes for their diverse clientele. I am so fortunate to be exposed to the quality of design that these individuals produce every day. The selections vary based on the locale, the end users and the functionality, we could be working on a residential apartment building, a k-12 educational facility, a higher education campus or healthcare project. Color plays a significant role in design, what emotions you want to evoke, what impression you want to exude and how a space is to be utilized.
What I love about the industry today is the trend away from matchy matchy and toward a mix of patterns, colors, styles, textures and eras. It allows me to inject my personal taste and flair into each project. As a Bright Spring, I love color and energy and try to infuse that in every project. Being bolder makes a space unique and memorable, getting myself away from my old color stand bys into my Bright Spring has encouraged me to be bolder with my suggestions for clients and has resulted in their willingness to take risks and the rewards have been innumerable.
One of my biggest challenges is that furniture and interior color trends relate directly to clothing and fashion color trends. The manufacturers of furniture, textile and paints select a color of the year and it trends across all areas. Sometimes the color is not a color I particularly embrace, and I need to find a relationship to it and work with it to keep the interior current and on trend. I love listening to designer explain how they select the color trends each year and I am fascinated by the resurgent of colors that I used 30 years ago and a whole new generation is embracing a palette that I designed with out of college.
I have always leaned toward interiors using contrasting colors rather than the monotone approach, I love oranges and blues and often use them in the same space, I ground pieces with black legs to add weight and a bit of seriousness to my otherwise often whimsical selections. My home is full of color as is my closet, but now, every piece speaks to me and of me.
Credentials:
Owner of EM&N marketing, Inc - NYS WBE
Owner and President of Quality Office Environments - NYS WBE Office Furniture Dealership
Owner Not Dot Shop- Co-Op shop - a 13 member shop focused on upcycled products, locally made wares, jewelry, gifts, furniture and antiques
Trustee for Wadsworth Library – recently completed a capital campaign to add a children’s library
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It’s a treat to introduce you to this month's colorful lives feature, Soft Autumn Tim Stich who is also my son!! Tim’s experience with shopping for clothing and wearing color is unique as I become a color analyst when he was quite young. When he and his sister Clare were little, I tried dressing them in bright colors with strong patterns as was the style then.....but even before learning about personal color harmony, I started to sense that the clothes overwhelmed them and began dressing them in softer colors and solids. I was even shocked the other day to discover when I pulled out his school photos that every single photo (even before I learned of his color palette) was taken in a Soft Autumn color. You can see how his life has evolved wearing the soft, earthy colors that suit his ruddy hair, freckles and soft blue/green eyes.
Over the years, he has mostly been very eager to wear what suits him and looked to me to help him distinguish soft autumn colors from the two seasons nearby - warm autumn and soft summer. We enjoy shopping together, especially now that he lives in Manhattan and the shopping is abundant. It can be a challenge to find his colors in sizes and style that fit but when its perfect, it feels great and he knows it. Read on to learn more about what it’s like to be a guy whose mom is a color consultant!
I am so excited to introduce you the “entertainingly irreverent” (Associated Press) Soft Summer, Valerie Peterson. Valerie is an extraordinary storyteller in a variety of media including scriptwriting, screenplays, fiction, non-fiction and book publishing/consulting. I analyzed her colors years ago in Rhode Island at a girls weekend hosted by a mutual friend (color analysis and girls weekends make a great combo!). In the years since, Valerie has embraced her Soft Summer colors in spite of living and working in New York City where black is a standard and practical.
It was a thrill when her publisher chose a photo of my family for her wonderfully spirited book, Peterson’s Happy Hour. On page 46, you can find me with my family - brothers, Mike and Tim and my parents Marcia and J. Michael Jones circa 1970. The book features many more photographic gems and recipes for a fabulous social gathering!
In this month’s colorful lives blog, Valerie shares her journey with her color palette. As with all her writing projects, she is humorous, colorful and entertaining! She has kept in great condition and still uses the Sci Art swatch book that I provided back in those days!! Be sure to check out her large body of work on valeriepeterson.net and read more in the blog:
While doing color analysis in Boston in June, I had the pleasure of meeting Danielle Burton and giving her a 12-Season Color Analysis. Danielle had recently experienced a 4-Season Color Analysis with a House of Colour consultant and was told she was a Winter. I was skeptical that she was any type of Winter (in the 12 season system, there are actually 3 Winters - Dark Winter, Cool Winter and Bright Winter). Her light eyes, natural lighter and soft brownish hair and skin tone were much more consistent with my clients who fall into the lighter seasons, especially Summer.
Since her hair had been highlighted, we covered it with a neutral gray cap to do the testing portion of the analysis, ensuring that the lighter color did not sway the results of the analysis. It was clear from the beginning that Danielle was responding more harmoniously to the cool tones even some of the lighter cool winter drapes which was consistent with her 4 season color analysis.
But, while she contrasted with any drapes that were dark and bright, she was softened and balanced by the lighter cool tones, particularly Summer. The dark colors brought out shadows under her eyes and the brighter colors overwhelmed her and brought attention to themselves. In the end, she looked lovely and perfectly balanced and harmonious in the Cool Summer colors!
"While I had a great experience at House of Colour, I do think they are missing out on a ton of research and color science by not including the 12 seasons and variants. The added layer of cool vs bright vs dark was a huge difference for me and really solidified which category I best fit”.
Enjoy reading more about Danielle’s experience with both systems and her reaction to her diagnosis as a Cool Summer:
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