Pressed Flash Turquoise

Latin pressāre, to press — past-participle of press. As a color modifier, pressed implies a clear-and-smoothed-and-flattened quality, the crisp color of Mid-Century-Modern freshly-pressed-shirt-and-trouser ironed-textile finish. Sits at the crisp-and-finished end of the grid, parallel to ironed and starched in usage.

Middle English flasshen, to-splash-or-burst. As a color modifier, flash implies a sudden-and-bursting-and-bright quality, the visual register of lightning-strike-and-camera-flash hand-sudden-and-bursting-and-bright lightning-strike-and-camera-flash-and-magnesium-powder flashed-and-sudden-and-bursting surfaces under lightning-strike-and-camera-flash-and-magnesium-powder split-second-burst storm-cloud-and-studio-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to spark and blaze in usage.

The hydrated copper-aluminum phosphate mined in Persia and the American Southwest for thousands of years — the firuze of Iran, the chalchihuitl of Mesoamerica, the heart of Pueblo and Navajo silverwork. The color refers to a fine Sleeping Beauty turquoise from Arizona: a saturated, slightly green-shifted blue with the slight matrix of host-rock veining. Brighter than persian, lighter than cerulean.