Colors Against Hate
Respecting the beauty of diversity
Colors Against Hate is a change-making artivism project that transforms vibrant colors into a positive force that promotes compassion and saves children’s lives across the globe.
What’s your favorite color?
Red, blue, yellow, purple, green, orange, brown, white, black?
Now imagine combining your favorite color with three other colors to create a beautiful colorful mosaic – What do you see?
I see a metaphor for diversity – And an opportunity to make the world a more beautiful and better place for all of us.
The surprise calling
What started as a simple crazy weekend project exploring random color combinations turned into an enlightening experience that opened my eyes to an important message that we need today.
Here’s what happened…
I now know why.
But when I first felt my calling to become a visual artist, I could not entirely explain why – I just knew it was the right thing to do:
So I just started creating a new artwork every day for 292 days in a row until my creative daily streak ended when my appendix burst.
The cubes
As you can imagine, it’s a difficult challenge to create a different artwork every single day. That’s why I would often feel stuck and return to one of my reoccurring subjects, the humble cube.
But almost always, when I made another cube, I felt like I was taking the easy way out. And I even began to worry that all I would ever make as an artist were more and more cubes.
The three muses
Over three days, in a somewhat mystical synchronized way, I received three creative prompts from three visionary women:
1. Jessica Moritz, an accomplished French-Israeli artist exploring the infinite journey of light, colors, geometry, gravity, logic, and sustainability, sent me a supportive comment:
“We are both playing with color.”
2. While watching a video, See the World with New Eyes, about Sister Corita Kent, the Pop art nun and social activist of the 1960s, teachings:
I was impressed by a former student’s story about Kent’s seemingly impossible art assignment to make 100 drawings in two days.
3. Something resonated deeply with me as I listened to an interview with Julia Cameron, author, artist, poet, playwright, novelist, filmmaker, composer, and journalist, when she described:
How she conquered her battle with perfectionism by promising the higher creative spirit that she would deliver as much quantity as possible as long as he would take care of the quality of her writing.
The challenge
I don’t believe in coincidences, so somehow feeling moved by these creative cues, as I drove home Friday after work, I thought to myself:
It would be a good weekend challenge for my loving wife, Kiki, and me to see if we could make 100 multi-colored cubes pictures together over the weekend.
The plan
To color in 108 cubes covering 18 sheets of paper, each with 6 preprinted cube outlines with a big box of markers that I always felt guilty about never using.
If we were going to finish on time, we couldn’t waste any time thinking about what colors we would use. So, we decided that no planning was allowed.
This would be a creative experiment with random color combinations.
The “Aha!” moment
Only taking breaks to eat, go shopping, and take some fresh air breaks, we blindly grabbed four random markers for each cube and colored in one cube after another…
Cube No.30: Royal-blue, fossil-gray, jade-green, ruby-red
Cube No.59: Lime-green, blush-pink, indigo-blue, silver-gray
Cube No.78: Butter-yellow, latte-brown, carrot-orange, navy-blue
And then, without warning, it happened…
Cube No.81: Cadet-blue, plum-purple, hunter-green, mulberry-purple
Quicker than a blink of an eye:
As soon as I thought, “Now that’s an ugly cube,” as I finished coloring in cube eighty-one.
I was suddenly overwhelmed by a compassionate wave of awareness, insight, and inspiration:
I realized that even though I think this cube is ugly, somebody in the world will believe that it’s the most beautiful of all.
That’s when it became clear to me that this project was more than an experiment in coloring random color combinations:
It’s an artistic metaphor for diversity and a calling for more tolerance and compassion in the world.
And I knew I was being called to share this story and project with you and the world.
The metaphor
Sometimes staying within the lines, sometimes not, these quickly colored in 108 cubes are a vivid metaphor for our individual uniqueness and the magnificent diversity of the world.
Like the cubes, we are not always appreciated, liked, or understood by everyone, but we are someone’s favorite.
We are the cubes – Colorful, multi-faceted, infinitely unique beings – We are all perfectly imperfect.
The much-needed message
Disagreements about politics, ethnicity, nationalism, religion, and science with friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, and strangers are dividing us apart more than ever before.
We all have biases and preferences, but we are not always right.
Negativity like cancel culture, censorship, and hate rarely result in good. Instead, our negative thoughts, perceptions, and actions only blind us and stop us from being happy.
So instead of focusing on what we don’t like, let’s do ourselves a favor by doing our best to see the world with more non-judgemental eyes.
The moral of this story
I did not see any of this coming, but I now see the world with new open eyes because of this simple crazy weekend project.
I now know that when I label things as bad, wrong, or ugly, this only blinds me from seeing the beauty of other peoples’ truths.
I sincerely hope this colorful story will also remind you to show more compassion, tolerance, and respect for the beauty of diversity.
Here’s how you can help…
If you only give once a month, please think about helping me save children’s lives across the globe.
Click here to buy a Colors Against Hate No.1!
50% of all profits we raise will be donated directly to Save the Children.
Colors Against Hate No.1
Save the Children is a global charity that responds to major emergencies, delivers innovative development programs, and ensures children’s voices are heard to build a better future for and with children.
Please be among the first to help me make Colors Against Hate an international artivism success story because we can all help.
Thank you for your generosity!