Stamped Cane Turquoise

Old English stempan, to stamp — past-participle of stamp. As a color modifier, stamped implies a clear-and-impressed-and-repeating quality, the crisp color of William-Morris-and-Liberty-of-London block-printed-textile carefully-impressed pattern. Sits at the crisp-and-printed end of the grid, parallel to printed and engraved in usage.

Old French canne, reed / cane. As a color modifier, cane implies a hand-cut-bamboo-or-rattan quality, the visual register of English-and-Edwardian-and-Asian-cane hand-cut-and-woven-cane bamboo-and-rattan-and-wicker hand-cut-cane-and-rattan surfaces under English-and-Edwardian-and-Asian hand-cut-cane-and-rattan furniture-and-craft light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to bark and hemp 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.