Julie Seabrook Ream - Encyclopedia of Rainbows: Our World Organized by Color

For Eliza, my rainbow girl

Copyright 2017 by Julie Seabrook Ream.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available.

ISBN 978-1-4521-5533-3 (hc)
IBSN 978-1-4521-5555-5 (epub, mobi)

Designed by Alice Chau
Illustrations by Arthur Mount

The names, symbols, logos, trademarks, and all other intellectual property of the companies, brands, and people appearing herein are the exclusive property of their respective owners.

Chronicle Books LLC
680 Second Street
San Francisco, California 94107
www.chroniclebooks.com

Whats your favorite color? is such a seemingly simple question, yet I could never come up with an answer. Finally one day when my daughter came home from preschool and asked the question, something clicked: I cant pick a favorite color because I like the way they all look together, in rainbow order. She nodded, and found this to be a perfectly acceptable answer. We got out my old set of colored pencils, organized them into a rainbow, and posted the photograph to Instagram. I was instantly filled with joy that I was encouraging my daughter to appreciate every color of the rainbow, so we decided to create one hundred of these rainbows together, in one hundred days.

Suddenly I was seeing rainbow possibilities everywhere. Each new discovery of a colorful object set me on a path to find more colorful varieties. When I found a bright piece of green jade, I started to wonder what other colors of rocks existed. Were there brilliantly colored blue rocks, too? And what about yellow? Could I make a whole rainbow out of stones? That creative experiment became the inspiration for this book.

As I continued to gather objects with my daughter, I was having as much fun learning about the subjects as I was making the rainbows. I discovered there are in fact blue stones called lapis lazuli and learned red eggs are laid by Black Copper Marans chickens. I had no idea how many different kinds of pencils are out therethere are pencils for writing, drafting, copying, carpentry, marking on glass, and even voting in election booths. I learned that an orange French cheese, Pav du Nord, is named for its resemblance in shape to cobblestones in its area of origin. Theres even a warty yellow variety of gourd that goes by the name of Lunch Lady. Each rainbow I started opened up a whole new world for exploration.

This book gathers these rainbows together into a sort of encyclopedia of things from nature and the manmade world. Of course, this is an encyclopedia in the loosest sense: I could spend years gathering as many rainbows as possible and still come nowhere close to revealing all there is to appreciate. But Ive rounded up objects from all corners of the earth here, from feathers and minerals to office supplies and food, and laid them out into this collection of rainbows. They range from geodes found in Madagascar to gadgets you might have in your kitchen cabinet. Grouped together and organized by hue, what emerges is the amazing array of color to be found everywhere in our world.

This project rekindled my love of nature and putting things in order. My extended family growing up was a strange combination of artists and scientists, and as a child, I loved learning about nature. I studied botany in college, but found the classification systems lacked the beauty that drew me to nature in the first place. It didnt take me long to realize that my true calling was not in a science lab, but in an art studio. With this project, I found a balance to these seemingly opposite worlds: the sense of discovery, exploration, and organization from science, mixed with a love of artistic color and form. It is more than just a collection of beautiful objectsits an appreciation of what they are and where they come from. For me, it was the most gratifying way possible to rediscover nature and beyond, and it was even more rewarding if I could bring others along on the journey.

There is a special kind of delight in the revelation of objects gathered in every color. So often, the first object that would become the starting point for a rainbow was just sitting in plain sight, either in my home or throughout the paths of my daily life, and discovering it was simply a matter of adjusting the way I saw the world. When I came across an inspiration pointlike an orange Monarch butterfly fluttering through the gardenI put on my rainbow-colored glasses and set about finding the other colors of butterflies in the world. I hope these photos inspire you to put on your own rainbow-colored glasses and view the world in a new way too.

1. Pink Glasswing
2. Eighty-Nine Butterfly
3. Blood-Red Glider
4. Common Red Glider
5. Crimson Prince
6. Aulestes Doctor
7. BD Butterfly
8. American Monarch
9. Gaudy Commodore
10. Orange Albatross
11. Gulf Fritillary
12. Silver-Striped Charaxes
13. Cruiser
14. Noble Swallowtail
15. Orange Tip
16. Golden Jezebel
17. Apricot Sulphur
18. Tailed Sulphur
19. Orange-Barred Sulphur
20. Chocolate Albatross
21. King Swallowtail
22. Orange Gull
23. Queen Swallowtail
24. Ornate Green Charaxes
25. Tailed Jay
26. Rajah Brookes Birdwing
27. Cape York Birdwing
28. Peacock Swallowtail
29. Red Flasher
30. Queen Flasher
31. Blue Triangle
32. Larger Striped Swordtail
33. Turquoise Emperor
34. Blue Mountain Swallowtail
35. Giant Blue Morpho
36. Mottled Leafwing
37. Hercules Oakblue
38. Leprieurs Glory
39. Blue Morpho
40. Spotted Lilac Tree Nymph
41. Purple Spotted Swallowtail
42. Agathina Emperor
43. Fire Opal Leafwing

1. Yellow-Spotted Flying Stick
2. Rainbow Milkweed Locust
3. Blood-Red Lanternfly
4. Red-Green Lanternfly
5. Javanese Lichen Stick Insect
6. Man-Faced Stink Bug
7. Bull Horn Beetle
8. Violin Beetle
9. Stag Beetle
10. Variegated Flutterer Dragonfly
11. Hercules Beetle
12. Yellow Umbrella Stick Insect