Looking for opinions.

[Taskr]

I like them.

Might we get the name and narratives for them (motivation, colours choices, etc)

[BrianHK]

I like them.

Might we get the name and narratives for them (motivation, colours choices, etc)

Hmm...I did not design these for any particular person (unlike the others I shared that were tributes to my Dad) or family. I mostly design tartans for their own sake. I see tartan as an art form in and of itself. I suppose these setts would be called “fashion” tartans at this point, but there would be nothing to prevent them from being registered as name, family, or clan tartans should the right people demonstrate an interest in them.

I call the first sett “Kachina” because after I completed it it reminded me of the Kachina dolls collected by an art teacher friend who had worked as a missionary in the desert southwest. I had chosen to work with six colors, and you’ll notice only the black is used for more than one stripe. I sometimes choose six colors and try to use each just once, sometimes it works and sometimes the sett needs a bit of massaging.

The second is named “Pine Grosbeak for Amble.” Again I chose six colors I thought might work well together and had at it. Originally the magenta was a more usual purple, but it just didn’t “pop” so I changed it. Also, the gold detailing between the green and the magenta was a serendipitous choice, also a fortuitous one, because I think it pulled everything together. Another designer, a better one, I feel, thought the same, and she decided the name, because she said it reminded her of a “bird about to take flight; perhaps a pine grosbeak or a purple finch.

I designed these setts early in 2010, and I doubt I’ve done anything better since.