Sharp Aquarius Turquoise

Old English scearp, cutting, pointed — applied metaphorically to color since the seventeenth century for hues that read as definite and edge-defined. Sharp red, sharp green: the implication is saturation combined with high-contrast crispness. Sits in the bright-bucket center alongside crisp and clear, with a slightly more incisive edge.

Latin aquarius, water-bearer-of-the-zodiac. As a color modifier, aquarius implies a water-bearer-and-air-sign-and-Saturn-Uranus-ruled-fixed-air quality, the visual register of Hellenic-Aquarius-and-Ganymede-water-bearer hand-water-bearer-and-air-sign-and-Saturn-Uranus-ruled-fixed-air Hellenic-Aquarius-and-Ganymede-water-bearer-and-cup-bearer aquarius-and-water-bearer-and-air-sign surfaces under Hellenic-Aquarius-and-Ganymede-water-bearer-and-cup-bearer mid-winter-and-January-and-February fixed-air-sign-light. Sits at the modifier-and-zodiac end of the grid, parallel to pisces and capricorn 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.