10:00-1:00     Session 1

The Eye Opener Series:
An Intro to the Color Literacy Project

Led by Maggie Maggio with Dr. Robin Kingsburgh, this workshop introduces participants to hands-on activities designed to increase awareness of color's role in our lives and expand color terminology.
Participants in this workshop will get the chance to experience a selection of the hands-on beta-test materials and activities which are part of the Eye Opener Series for Phase Two of the teacher training program with partner schools. program. The introductory Eye Opener Series is focused on the first two Colour Literacy Project Cornerstones – Experiencing and Describing Colour  - with hands-on exercises that are designed to increase awareness of the major role colour plays in our lives, expand terminology for describing colour, and explore colour as non-verbal communication. The workshop includes activities on seeing and naming colours, sorting colours and ordering colours in three dimensions. 

Maggie Maggio is a designer, artist, and art educator who has studied, taught, and worked with color for over forty years. Her personal explorations into the science of light and pigments led to the creation of workshops for artists and designers who want to incorporate the latest research in color science into their creative practice. Influenced by her experience teaching colour workshops around the world she now focuses on bridging between the art, science, and industry of color and advancing color literacy for the twenty-first century. Maggie has a BS in Interior Design from Drexel University and a M. Architecture from Syracuse University. She is the current President of the Inter-Society Colour Council of the United States, and co-chair of the joint ISCC/AIC Colour Literacy Project. She lives in Portland, Oregon - one of the most colorful cities in the world.

A Beginners Guide to Color Measurement

David R. Wyble, President of Avian Rochester LLC, will provide an introduction to color measurement, covering instrumentation, sample preparation, and data interpretation. No physics or math required, and you can even bring your own stuff to measure. This class is an introduction and best practices guide for color measurement. To help us all speak the same color language, we start by defining the terms describing the instruments and quantities used in color measurement. Besides instrumentation, you also need to know about what you actually measure: samples and sample preparation. After you take that measurement, you get data, and lots of it. You’ve probably heard of RGB or HSV data, but those data are not going to be as useful as you might think. We will cover color spaces that relate the instrument data to how people see colors and color differences—which is the ultimate goal of color measurement. When we are done, you should understand how to take a measurement (there will be real instruments on hand) and how to interpret color data (we will take measurements and look at the results). Physics and math will be at a minimum for this straightforward introduction to an often intimidating topic.

David R. Wyble is President and Founder of Avian Rochester, LLC. He has worked in various capacities within the color field for over thirty-five years. This started at Xerox Corporation where he worked in image quality modeling of the electrophotographic color printing process. He was a full time research scientist in the Munsell Color Science Laboratory at Rochester Institute of Technology from 1997 to late 2012 and still part-time as of 2023. For nearly all of his time at RIT, he taught various graduate and undergraduate color and imaging science courses as an adjunct professor. In 2007, he began working small projects with Avian Technologies, LLC, and has worked with them steadily ever since. At Avian Technologies Dave is currently Director of Color Science (part time).

The Natural Colour System - A Toolbox for Designers

A knowledge of colour order systems is central to professional colour design work. This course will include a basic introduction to the NCS colour order system with a presentation of products and tools followed by demonstrations and hands-on exercises exploring the use of the NCS system by designers. All hands-on materials and course documentation will be provided.

Asta Florestedt is an interior architect with seven years of experience in designing both private and public spaces. Her diverse portfolio includes healthcare facilities, educational institutions, exhibitions, and restaurants. Asta specializes in the use of colour in interior architecture and in the fall of 2024, she joined NCS as the Colour Academy Lead. In this role, she is dedicated to providing color education across various professions, helping others appreciate the vital role that colour plays in design.

2:00-5:00     Session 2

Multidisciplinary Explorations of Colour Concepts:
A Colour Literacy Project Workshop

Dr. Robin Kingsburgh, with Maggie Maggio, will lead an advanced workshop exploring color mixing processes and complementary colors from multidisciplinary perspectives.Participants in this workshop will get the chance to expand their hands-on experiences of Colour Literacy Project (CLP) exercises, with a selection of the beta-test materials and activities which are part of Phase Two of the teacher training program. Participants will have either attended the morning CLP Short Course on the Eye Opener exercises, or attended the CLP workshop offered at Color Impact 2023. This series in the training curriculum approaches colour from multidisciplinary perspectives, and is focused on the two colour literacy cornerstones: Perceiving Colours, and Working with Colours.

Robin Kingsburgh is a trained astronomer (Ph.D. in Astronomy, 1992, University College London), and a trained painter. Her artistic education comes from studies at the University of Toronto, as well as in the U.K. and France, and has paralleled her scientific development. She has longstanding interests in the intersections of art, science and education. She currently teaches various Natural Science courses at York University, Toronto, including Understanding Colour, a course on the science of colour, as well as The History of Astronomy and The Nature of Time. She has curated numerous shows and events in the Toronto area, featuring artwork inspired by the ideas and methodologies of science. She is President of the Colour Research Society of Canada, a Board member of the Inter Society Colour Council, a member of the Ontario Society of Artists, and a member of the joint ISCC/AIC Colour Literacy Project.   http://robinkingsburgh.com/ 

"What did you say?": Exploring the Challenges of Communicating Color Science

Kimberly R. Mercier, Principal at Lighting Design Innovations, will address communication challenges between color scientists and building design professionals. The most challenging communication channels require application of multiple areas of expertise to navigate the inevitable misunderstandings successfully.  So, how do color scientists understand building design professionals (like architects, lighting designers, interior designers) better?  Although we speak a different “language” of color resulting from differing color educational backgrounds – our objectives are the same.  

In this program, Kim will share her opinions about the likely sources of miscommunication, present ideas to smooth the communication turbulence, and suggest ways in which we can all facilitate more effective working relationships while achieving built environments that effervesce their color expression in ways that are immersive, communicative, and celebrated.  All color sciences, material sciences, building sciences, and fine arts professionals will benefit from participation in this communication workshop…the more diverse the experience of participants – the more we will all learn about communication!

Kimberly Mercier is an experienced, award winning lighting designer, Professional Engineer and Chair of the IES Light and Human Health Committee, Kim bridges the gap between lighting science and application by actively participating on academic and professional development content delivery channels.  She is motivated by "bringing light" to people, to places, to history, to the built environment, and to life and her career accomplishments are representative of that singular pursuit.  Ms. Mercier has served as the international President of the IES and currently serves as Vice President of Membership on the Executive Committee of the CIE US National Committee.

Since 2016, Kim has performed instrumental work for the IES Light and Human Health Committee.  The only lighting design professional member of a global committee of research and medical professionals tasked with creating an ANSI standard recommended practice document for the application of light and human health discoveries to the built environments in which we live and work, Kim created the pedagogical approach of the document layout and progression to best reach the intended audience.  Mastering the ability to translate the science of light into language that is understood by designers, artists, and construction professionals has provided her greatest sense of accomplishment and is fast becoming the personal attribute for which she is best known.

Interacting with Color: A Practical Guide to Josef Albers's Color Experiments

Fritz Horstman will lead hands-on experiments based on his book, exploring color relativity and illusions. Horstman will present his book Interacting with Color: A Practical Guide to Josef Albers’s Color Experiments, published in 2024 by Yale Press, which will lead into hands-on experiments with the color experiments described in the book. 

Josef Albers’s 1963 Interaction of Color is often presented as an overarching theory of color, but it is actually a method of learning how to better see and understand color—many of the color exercises illustrated in Interaction of Color were devised by Albers’s students: cutting and pasting, looking, pondering, and learning. This workbook companion is a teaching tool designed to enable readers to engage in the kinds of tactile creativity and exploration that characterized Albers’s own classroom.

Focusing on eight of the most important lessons in Interaction of Color, this book invites readers to learn by doing, using only simple materials. Core instructions for each exercise are enhanced by additional tips, references to Albers’s original text and illustrations, and stories about how Albers presented the ideas in class. Participants in the course will use Color-aid paper to engage with such color phenomena color relativity, reversed grounds, illusions of transparence, and more.  

Fritz Horstman is a curator, educator, and artist based in Bethany, Connecticut where he is Education Director at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. He has curated exhibitions across Europe and the United States, including Anni Albers: In Thread and On Paper at the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, TX. Author of Interacting with Color: A Practical Guide to Josef Albers’s Color Experiments, as well as many essays on the teaching and art practices of the Alberses,he has lectured and given workshops at Yale University, Harvard University, Princeton University, the Bauhaus in both Dessau and Berlin, Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center, l'École des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, Lebanese American Univesity in Beirut, The Royal Academy of Art in London, and many other institutions. A solo exhibition of his sculptures and photographs is currently on view at the New Britain Museum of American Art in New Britain, Connecticut. He is represented by Municipal Bonds in San Francisco, where he will have a solo show in November 2024; and Planthouse Gallery in Manhattan, where he will have a solo show in April 2025. He received his BA from Kenyon College and his MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art.