Fairmont Color Card

Fairmont Color Card is an exploration of the roles of textile, color, and fashion in the origin story of landfill culture. Text for the project was culled from 1977-1978 Home Furnishing Color Card, produced by The Color Association of the United States, Inc. and The Wastemakers, written by Vance Packard in 1960. Designed and produced between 2019 and 2021, the project began in one place and ended in another.

This project includes a three-panel sample book and a series of seven collages housed in an enclosure. Materials for this project include my sheets, my clothes, and thread color matched to these textile samples and the walls, hair, and skin found in my home. Produced in an edition of twenty copies, the fabric collages included in this project are all identical save for one, the card titled “the significance of these private worlds,” which is unique to each copy.

This project was made possible by a small grant from the Office of Research and Economic Development at The University of Alabama. Research on Color Cards was conducted at Yale University Birren Collection of Books on Color in 2019. Thanks are due to Sarah Scarr and Beth Sheehan for their assistance with this project.

Techniques include: Letterpress printed text from handset Bembo type, textile, and foil blocking. Materials for the enclosure include binders board, Duo Bookcloth, and fabric.

Dimensions in inches : 9.4 x 3.5 x 1.75”
Edition of 20 copies