Spick Hollow Turquoise

Old Norse spik-spakr, spike-new — sharing root with spic-and-span. As a color modifier, spick implies a clear-and-newly-cleaned quality where the hue carries the just-polished visual register of fresh-painted-and-fresh-cleaned surfaces. Sits at the crisp-and-clean end of the grid, parallel to spotless and pristine in usage.

Old English holh, hollow-place. As a color modifier, hollow implies a scooped-and-empty-and-resonant quality, the visual register of bell-and-gourd-and-tree-hollow hand-scooped-and-empty-and-resonant bell-and-gourd-and-tree-hollow hollowed-and-scooped-and-empty-and-resonant surfaces under bell-and-gourd-and-tree-hollow campanile-and-harvest-and-old-oak resonant-and-empty-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to void and blank 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.