The Sound of Colour

Bethan Laura Wood - A compelling journey into the kaleidoscopic world of colour

• Sarah Gottlieb • Season 1 • Episode 5

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In this episode of "The Sound of Colour”, you will be invited into the vivid world of designer Bethan Laura Wood, whose affinity for colour has profoundly shaped her creative journey. 

Bethan Laura Wood is a multidisciplinary designer based in London. 
In her work she explores unlikely combinations of colour and shape, developing unique timber veneers, material composites and textiles for her projects that ranges from furniture, lighting and objects to installations and accessories. 
Bethan has worked with international companies such as Tory Burch, Perrier Jouët, Hermés and Moroso amongst many others. Her work has been exhibited at Victoria and Albert Museum in London, MOMA in San Francisco, The Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo.

In this episode Bethan tells me how her lifelong passion for colour always has been a powerful means of self-expression from an early age. She shares her fascination with mass production versus unique design and how these can interlink, we discuss how colours evoke personal emotions and the delicate balancing act of weaving personal enjoyment with project demands. Discover how the cultural and historical significance of colour plays a big part in her creative process and design philosophy.

Wrapping up this episode with the musical experiment “The Sound of a Colour”, this time composed by musician Stephen Burns that creates the sound of Mint Latte Green.

Me and Bethan talked for hours, the conversation was very insightful and I was really blown away by Bethan’s vast historical knowledge. I hope you will enjoy it too. Happy listening.

For more color inspiration follow @sarah__gottlieb and this episode's guest @bethanlaurawood and the episode's audio oracle @beavensterns

This episode is sponsored by Montana Furniture.

SHOWNOTES
We talk about how Bethan’s tutors the Royal College of Art influenced her to pursue her passion for colours even more.

The Kaleidoscope-o-rama project was commissioned for the NGV Triennial 2023 at the National Gallery of Victoria

Learn more about the women’s educational movement The Blue Stocking Society

Check out more of Bethan Laura Wood’s work at her website 

–
The Sound of Colour is produced by Sarah Gottlieb, with music by Matt Motte.

The host
Sarah Gottlieb is a Danish Colour Designer and Art Director. She runs her own studio, where she has specialised in Colour Design, Visual Concepts and Spatial Design. Sarah strives to move the boundaries of what colour can do and her goal is to encourage people to embrace more colourful worlds.

To hear more from me

For images and information from each episode go to the Podcast website

Sign up to my newsletter for monthly colour inspiration

Follow me on Instagram

Sarah Gottlieb:

Hi, my name is Sarah Gottlieb and you are listening to the Sound of Color. I'm a designer and I work with colors in spatial design, product design and branding. In this podcast, you will meet a series of influential guests in the field of design and architecture, who will all share their personal stories and expert knowledge on and about colors. Together, we will delve into the magic of color and its significance in the world of design.

Bethan Laura Wood:

Partly why I think that I like color so much is it's the way that I kind of digest and experience the world.

Sarah Gottlieb:

The Sound of Color is brought to you in collaboration with Montana Furniture. I'm very excited about my podcast sponsor because Montana Furniture is a part of creating more playful spaces by bringing colors and high quality furniture into private homes, offices, universities, boardrooms, restaurants, lobbies and concert halls. So, as you can hear, they are just as big color nerds as me. Hi Bethan, Hello the guest in this episode is Bethan Laura Wood.

Bethan Laura Wood:

We live in worlds that are made from so many layers, so why not design in ways where I can interact with that?

Sarah Gottlieb:

Bethan Laura Wood is a multidisciplinary designer based in London. Bethan's work is an explosion of craftsmanship, patterns, material investigation, artisan collaborations and her passion for color. I originally met Bethanne when we studied at the Royal College of Art and already back then she was an outburst of color both in her work but also in her appearance, and I have to admit that I got deeply fascinated by her self-expression when we first met, and I have been obsessed with her design work ever since. She explores unlikely combinations of color and shape, developing unique timber veneers, material composites and textiles for furniture, lighting objects, installations and accessories.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Bethann has been commissioned by a variety of international companies, including Tory Burch, perrier-schwed, Hermes and Morosso. Her work has also been exhibited at institutions such as Victoria and Albert Museum, moma in San Francisco, the Swiss Institute of Contemporary Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo. In this episode, bethan and I talk about the fear of color when designing, because where is the boundary between personal enjoyment and a project's need for color? We talk about how color was a very accessible tool for Bethan for expressing herself as she grew up, and Bethan shares her vast knowledge on cultural and historical significance of surface design and color in domestic space and the interior, and how this fascination for historical context is a big part of her design process. But first of all I want to know where Bethann's interest in color originally comes from.

Bethan Laura Wood:

I mean I'm not a hundred percent sure I can really pinpoint any particular point where I turned up the volume in my colour appreciation. I think I'm naturally drawn to colour in general. I mean, I was just at home recently and looking at incriminating old pictures of myself and there's obviously ebbs and flows of colour-based outfits, but there's definitely still quite a bit of colour in nearly all of these photographs from my early teens and things. And you're not wearing white today, let's just say that.

Bethan Laura Wood:

No, no, I don't think I wear white very often, or black. I would say Black and white together. I have a few things, but it's not my, it's not my default uh safe space, no, so I think it's. It's something. As I grew up, I kind of found it a very um accessible tool for expressing myself. And then I've just I love the way that color um connects with people and even though there's there's a lot of fear around kind of color in weird ways, I think it's because it has people have such emotional responses to it, but they don't necessarily understand why.

Bethan Laura Wood:

Yeah, so I think it's something that I I personally have been drawn to and then, as I studied and kind of tried to develop a language and a practice, I understood that it was something that I could use within my work in a way that maybe other people don't want to use it. So I think for me it was important to try and find or learn the point where the colour was the right thing for that project and also be comfortable with not having it if it wasn't. But predominantly, most of my things are colourful and especially the body of work that I've been doing most recently is very colourful. So you know I can't pretend that it's not popping out and saying hello. You know I can't pretend that it's not popping out and saying hello.

Sarah Gottlieb:

No, I just want to say we're sitting here in your mini showroom studio like the non-dirty part of your workshop, and I think I can't name a colour that's not kind of represented in this room.

Bethan Laura Wood:

I mean, yeah, there is. I mean I do try and have a broad church for all colours. It's a safe space for all colours to come and say hello. It's warm and embracing, exactly. Yeah, there's quite a lot of colour going on in here. There's quite a lot of my pattern-based projects and printouts. I like to print things out large scale or one-to-one to get a feeling of them. So until they kind of slowly disintegrate or die, I'll keep. I'll keep these kind of printouts out for a while, especially if I'm working on a project where I want to kind of continue the language. And yeah, there's lots of little bits of different things.

Sarah Gottlieb:

And then quite a lot of my books are here and also, it seems like you have like a small like collections of just things that you've found and been intrigued by.

Bethan Laura Wood:

Little bits I mean I've got. Most of that is actually at my home, so this is very light on.

Sarah Gottlieb:

I like that you say that this is light.

Bethan Laura Wood:

This is. This is predominantly unashamedly my stuff in here. There's a lot more of my things here than found things, but there are there are definitely some found elements and then when I'm working on certain projects where my like a found object might be one of the references, then I will bring it in. But I think it's a little bit of a habit that my other space, that I still have my like big workshop tools and things I got used to not bringing a lot of the kind of precious objects there because they'd kind of slowly disintegrate over the like powerful sunlight and the kind of intense environment. So I try and be. I kind of feel terrible when an object has managed to survive and then it comes in my hands and then it like dies.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Bethann's studio is a really fascinating space to be in. It's an explosion of colors and I would love to hear why and how she started using colors in her own work.

Bethan Laura Wood:

On my BA I dabbled a tiny bit in pattern and color but I was very timid with how I used it. So I did like these cups that stain with use over time. But I the pattern I developed for it was very like, very connected to like the willow pattern or existing patterns, and and then when I did an addition later, I kind of released the birds from this in a more. I had played with it more and I think I made also like a table that like unfolded like an umbrella and I just had like neon color on the tip. So I think it was being quite timid with color because I think I was still trying to negate the separation or the difference between my personal enjoyment for color and when a project needs color.

Bethan Laura Wood:

I think,

Sarah Gottlieb:

why

Sarah Gottlieb:

is that?

Sarah Gottlieb:

separation. What was your thoughts?

Bethan Laura Wood:

I think at that time I was still trying to understand whether there should be a difference or what the difference or what as a designer where you should, where's the point, where you should be designing things only for yourself and when you should be designing for other people, or is there a place in the middle?

Bethan Laura Wood:

Or you know lots of those kind of things that when you're trying to like understand a bit about the practice or the industry you want to go into and where your place should be. I think when I went to the RCA and then studied there, I had amazing tutors, martino Gampa and Jürgen Bay and they were kind of like no, you should use more of this and embrace this subtlety or knowledge that you have with colours. And I think also then I found a project working with laminates that are all this language of surface and colour, and so it was appropriate for that material that I really engaged with colour and with pattern and the narratives that it has and and stuff. So I think then that kind of opened the floodgates for me to feel comfortable and confident over why that was appropriate with that project, and then I kind of haven't looked back since.

Sarah Gottlieb:

No, it really doesn't seem like Bethan has looked back. It's just forward and onwards, and with even more colors. So I'm excited to hear which color she will choose in my musical experiment, the Sound of Color. So, bethan, what color should we hear the sound of?

Bethan Laura Wood:

Okay, interesting, I might okay. So I'll give you a colour that's one of my favourite colours. Good idea, but I might rescind with a different colour once I've percolated over the idea of what colour might be interesting to make in sound might be interesting to make in sound. I like green a lot and I like the kind of mint latte green. So it's like the kind of green cordial when you pour it into milk and on its way to like 1970s green, oh, wow.

Sarah Gottlieb:

That's quite interesting. I'm taking a little picture with my finger on the reference. I like this, like your print, almost kind of. No, that's quite interesting. I'm taking a little picture with my finger on the reference.

Bethan Laura Wood:

So I like this, like your print, almost kind of. No that's got more blue, but all colours around this window I enjoy, so that might be an interesting colour to navigate.

Sarah Gottlieb:

I just want to, and now you almost said it, but if we're thinking, going with the thought that a color is a different sensory experience, what would that color taste like?

Bethan Laura Wood:

well so it's. It's weird because I partly why I think that I like color so much is it's the way that I kind of digest and experience the world, but I don't know if I'm. I know well, not that I don't know if I'm. I know well, not that I don't know. I know that my other senses are nowhere near as acute to the nuance, including things like smell and taste. After working with like Perijouet and seeing a sommelier explain the wonders of how they can taste all these different flavors and attach them to specific visual references and I'm like they're drinking going, I do not I.

Bethan Laura Wood:

I I love your descriptions but my taste buds are nowhere nuanced to this. So when I'm working with colors, I definitely feel like I, I can taste when it feels tastes good, but I don't know whether I can tell you what that taste necessarily is. It's just that it it's like tastes good rather than tinny or or flat like, so it's more like a round or soft or yeah, not necessarily super soft, but like it's. That it's like when you have a complex group of flavors that give you a combination that's both enjoyable but also stimulating, and I think when some I do some colors together, then it might be that it tastes tinny. You know like it tastes, not that it's metallic, but it's like it's that kind of something. You feel that the balance is not there. But then it's also like you don't want it to taste bland, where it's like everything is just on the same, like giving you the same thing. Yeah, yeah, I definitely.

Bethan Laura Wood:

I definitely feel like I can taste when colors taste good but, it's normally to do with combinations of colors rather than an individual yeah, color.

Sarah Gottlieb:

It's time to introduce the musician of this episode. It'll be exciting to hear what he gets out of Bethan's mint green color.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Hi, Stephen.

Stephen Burns:

Hello Sarah.

Sarah Gottlieb:

In this episode I have invited the musician Stephen Burns to join me and my sound experiment. Stephen is an Atlanta, Georgia-born songwriter. He is a multi-instrumentalist and producer based in Copenhagen, with a slight obsession for his lo-fi half-inch recording tape. Currently he plays and tours with his LA-based band, Triptides. He has a solo recording project called Little Rituals and he is writing and performing with a new trio in Copenhagen called Sioux, who just released their debut album, Sioux One. It has been great to meet Stephen and I'm happy that I got him to join in on the experiment to create the sound of color.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Thank you very much for wanting to take part in this kind of experiment, the sound of color. In this episode, my guest is British designer called Bethan Laura Wood and she's, I would say, a multidisciplinary designer but with a focus on product design.

Stephen Burns:

Cool.

Sarah Gottlieb:

And so when I asked her to pick a color that she wanted to hear the sound of, she immediately said like I want to pick my favorite color, which is green.

Stephen Burns:

It's a good one.

Sarah Gottlieb:

It's a good one. And, more specific, she picked a color that she calls mint latte green. Yeah Okay, mint latte green.

Stephen Burns:

Yeah, okay, mint latte green and.

Sarah Gottlieb:

I just want to try and figure. I just want to show you like a picture of, like the mint. Ah, okay, it's like this color. That's what I'm picturing yeah that's great. She said it's like cordial in milk and I was like what? But apparently that's a big thing in Italy. Like kids drink cordial in milk and like they drink this specific kind of mint cordial.

Stephen Burns:

I've not had the pleasure of. I don't know if it's a pleasure either, but like when she said it.

Sarah Gottlieb:

I could imagine that that's like the color of it.

Stephen Burns:

It looks really nice. I see like old, like kitchen appliances. Yeah, that has an LA kind of sunny kitchen appliance vibe for me as well, right, or an old Cadillac or something.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Yeah, like back in the days when they did cars in nice colors.

Stephen Burns:

In those nice colors, in those Mary Kay colors.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Yeah, so basically that's the color that you have to interpret musically. I love that. I love that. That's good. How do you think you'll do it?

Stephen Burns:

My mind initially goes to like more retro stuff. Thankfully that's my wheelhouse and, in terms of recording as well, I like a little bit of lo-fi and, uh, maybe some tape elements of it um, let me say tape elements.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Describe that for someone like oh yeah right what is he talking about I? I'm a giant nerd, I forget sometimes I'm like you mean like masking tape.

Stephen Burns:

No, I mean like a reel-to-reel recording tape. Ah, like, yeah, old school recording, so like a half-inch recording tape is the machine that I have yeah, right over there actually and it gives it this nice like texture. This sound gives it this nice like texture. The sound gives it this texture. So I feel like something vintage, with like a lot of space, and my mind also goes to like some, maybe like psychedelic elements, as well, what is that?

Sarah Gottlieb:

what is it in the mint green?

Stephen Burns:

that kind of takes you down like the psychedelic route it's just a really big pop of color, you know, know it's really, and so when you have that occupying a lot of space, you tend to kind of get lost in it, or I don't know.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Delirious kind of like.

Stephen Burns:

Yeah, I mean it feels otherworldly right, it's like mint latte aside. It's kind of like you don't see that color in nature necessarily. No, I you have many colors.

Sarah Gottlieb:

You would be surprised, though, but yeah, it's not like a that's true. I guess it's the milkiness of it yeah if you had to like put like one musical word on the mint latte green, what musical word would that be?

Stephen Burns:

well, I'll borrow a kind of non-musical word that's used musically Bright.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Bright, yeah, and why?

Stephen Burns:

Well, I think again there's this joy element and a pop element, something that really jumps out and pulls you in to this. So I think bright sounds you find like a balanced, textured brightness in music. It's really powerful because you're kind of then running the whole range of frequencies, because bright in musical terms just means like high end treble, a certain frequency range. When you make the top end of the sound pleasing to the human ear, it reveals a lot of depth and you can expand it almost like infinitely. I think, if you think in terms of synthesizers and wavelengths, you have these wavelengths that run alongside each other and then the one that kind of sits on top wave-wise if you can that's when you can just hit one single note and have it expand forever in some weird way.

Stephen Burns:

It's this brightness. Oh, wow this rich kind of brightness to it. So I think, yeah, bright it's not really a musical word but it's often used, like when recording. Can we make that guitar brighter?

Sarah Gottlieb:

can we make these cymbals a little brighter, you know ah, it's cool it's a really fun now everybody got to know some like musical lingo when they that's right when you hit the recording studio and you want to frustrate the hell out of an engineer, you just go.

Stephen Burns:

Can we make this brighter?

Sarah Gottlieb:

which is totally also how it works with when you work with color exactly I like it, but can it be brighter?

Stephen Burns:

yeah, we all have like sort of synesthesia in some way yeah, because it makes no sense when you think about can you make this sound brighter? Yeah, no, but like you can imagine what that would I guess.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Yeah, I do have a like, some sort of connotation of what that sounds like.

Stephen Burns:

Yeah, well, now I'm held to it. I'll have to bring it to life in some way. Yeah, you have to.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Okay, well, I think that sounds very exciting, and I will look forward to talking to you again and hear your version of Min Latte Green.

Stephen Burns:

I'm excited to dive in Great.

Sarah Gottlieb:

While we let Stephen enjoy the process of creating the sound of mint latte green, I will return to Bethan to talk about a recurring element in this podcast. In each episode, we discuss a piece of work that has had a great impact on my guests and how they work with color, and Bethan has chosen one of her projects called Kaleidoscope-O-Rama, an almost three meter high rotating bookshelf. It's an aesthetic explosion of angles, lines, patterns and, last but not least, colors. I'm very excited to hear how this project came about.

Bethan Laura Wood:

So the project is, much like its namesake, quite multi-faceted as a project. It originally came about from a commission that I was invited by the national gallery victoria in melbourne, australia, to be the second recipient of their mecca supported commission. So this is a big beauty brand in australia called mecca and Jo, their founder, is a big supporter of women in the arts and is very keen to support women in different ways. So for this commission they invite a different female design orientated, creative to make work that will be then part of the permanent collection of the museum. So that was the kind of the framework and then the museum invited me to make a body of work to go in the British Regency room yeah, and what is the British Regency?

Bethan Laura Wood:

so the this is a room in the museum that's dedicated to this particular period of time. So the Regency is late 18th century, early 19th century window of time. It's kind of the very beginning bones of the industrial revolution. But before you hit the kind of uh, william morris, uh reaction against, and it's I would say um, most people's references will either be a Jane Austen novel or the kind of Grecian architecturally heavy led aesthetics that you kind of imagine when you go to like a stately home.

Sarah Gottlieb:

And so you were making a contemporary piece in this setting.

Bethan Laura Wood:

Yes. So when I was trying to work out how to respond to this period, I was struggling a bit at the beginning because it's quite male focused or there's a lot of it's still very heavy empire window of time, so there's a lot of kind of borrowing of aesthetics from different places and you know it's it's very interesting but it's quite weighty and I was struggling for a while to find my way in. And then I started to discover about this society called the Blue Stocking Society, which was one of the very first kind of female movements, the very early kernels of the feminist movement. And so then I kind of was like okay, maybe this is interesting also for the context of the commission, and so I decided let's go with that as a direction and this period and the blue stockings, which became a very derogatory term after the kind of the end of the blue stockings or like.

Bethan Laura Wood:

Like happens in a lot of culture you, you have an identity and then it gets turned into a derogatory term. And I found like this punch cartoon from the period that was like kind of very bright and raucous colors and kind of crazy women kind of fighting over a table, spilling tea, hurtling cats, and it was this idea that when blue stockings get together, all they can do is create chaos and there's no way women can have a intellectual conversation so I kind of I don't want to say so, like just for the listeners like short, very short Blue Stocking Society was women coming together to discuss like arts and philosophy and yeah all subjects.

Bethan Laura Wood:

They tended to stay away from politics, but it was the first kernels of when I mean predominantly led by women that could afford to spend time to invite people to their homes yeah, patrons of women that would invite people to come to their spaces, where women could speak as equals to men on a variety of subjects. Yeah, a lot of the time those subjects may be led by um, science or history or art or things that were in mass culture at the time but weren't necessarily things that women were seen to be able to think about or have an opinion on without their wombs falling out. So this was one of the very first times where, like, important men from the period would be in a space where a woman would speak, yeah, and would speak eloquently or with an opinion. So that was kind of the what the blue stocking salons were for and then this cartoon was like mocking yes, exactly so this was a cartoon kind of mocking the reality behind the doors.

Bethan Laura Wood:

When he opened there isn't this it's women pulling hair out and throwing tea everywhere and and it's kind of really saturated, overly thin but highly colored, but aggressively colored, like it's just kind of all the things that you that that are kind of meant to be like derogatory about women in this kind of cartoon. So I like the idea of like taking this and turning it on its head and retake, reclaiming those kind of intensity of colour and pattern and movement and swirl, but in the hands of me who's a woman, and reclaiming and building a language that's unashamed of embracing colour and pattern and stimulus.

Sarah Gottlieb:

When Bethan talks about her work, it's clear that she's done a lot of research. She has studied the historical aspects of that period of time, the literature, and looked at the art and the design and the architecture of that period of time, and it's also through this research that Bethan has found her inspiration for materials and colours.

Bethan Laura Wood:

Reading these books I was like finding different colour combinations and trying to like build a language that had a nod to some of the color combinations I was finding from the Regency, the colors in this kind of Walrus cartoon and all of this stuff. And then I had been working with the veneering company Alpi on a previous project and I knew from a commission piece there was, there was a body of work that I knew was going to be really interesting to work with. This technique we'd kind of developed and then this seemed like the perfect project to work with this veneer, because also this type like things like veneer and um graining which is the word, which is the name for like interpretation, painted interpretations of exotic, fancy woods was also a big craze coming through at this time. And things like big ornate, very patterned carpets were being um industrialized in britain because there was a big demand for these. But because then at the same time like jacquard looms and things like that were being invented, it was suddenly giving access to heavily patinated things to a whole different market people. So it was like all of these different things, yeah, squished together, yeah, and then I designed a big rotational bookcase.

Bethan Laura Wood:

So again, I wanted to have this way of being able to access knowledge from all different sides. Plus, people find it slightly disconcerting when groups of women gather together and hold hands. So I I like this idea of kind of building all of this hot soup of stuff together to create a body of work. Yeah, so it resulted in a big rotational bookcase made with all these bookmatch veneers that are based on this, these books that these blocks of the years that are kind of the size of a large a2 art book. So this is my book of knowledge to into the library and by making, using the book matching technique, it gives these kind of kaleidoscopic and myriad images that also a lot of people, because it's in our nature we have.

Bethan Laura Wood:

We are stimulated by this mix between slightly regimented pattern, as in there's points that you went within, mirroring that give comfort, because it's a mirror mixed with enough movement that then it's stimulated that you start to imagine different shapes and creatures and stuff. So I also like that. There wasn't, I could play with that within the patination. So that made that body of work. And then I made a big carpet piece um, that was like with the kind of idea of graining technique and using um instead of hand knotting. I used the tufting gun also because it was a very big carpet, um, but again, it was this like bridge between the world of the hand and machine, and blah, blah, blah yeah, sorry, big long conversation.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Don't be sorry, please and no, but like I think, just want to ask like, so the kaleidoscope part of it, if you can say that, where did, where did that come? Okay?

Bethan Laura Wood:

so with a lot of my projects, I love to include lots of different references yeah, but especially when I'm in the middle of a project or I'm carrying it through.

Bethan Laura Wood:

Sometimes I forget how to explain all the layers without overloading, and also, depending on what part of the project I'm working on, one of those elements might be more important than the other. Yeah, for this iteration or that iteration, but the kaleidoscopic part of it comes from two things. One is that the actual tool, a kaleidoscope, the, the thing that we all recognise today, is the kind of three bits of mirror. This was being patented and kind of flag posted as invented in this period of time, so in the 18th century, and I love that in these kind of newspapers or periodicals of the time they were using the kaleidoscope as a way to explain different things happening rather than just being about a kaleidoscope, like there was one that was like a satire to do with politics and saying that the you know, the guy's looking through his kaleidoscope and and and walking into walls because he's not viewing outside of this kind of illusion.

Bethan Laura Wood:

Yeah, and I think for me it was great because it it both was like the kind of iphone or the, the addictive tiktok of the time, but then it also, for me, had this great way of bridging between both a positive of using a kaleidoscope or a tool to open up your imagination by creating, like these huge kind of vista, patterns from a small detail only through its repetition and part of the kaleidoscope. At the beginning it was this kind of tool for artists to be able to create pattern, and then it became a big thing because people just there is something that we naturally find alluring about the way that it creates pattern and that it moves and that it changes. And then, on the other side, I felt like it had an interesting comment on this thing that seems to be going on in mass culture a lot at the moment Now, with the Internet and false information and the ways that we have issues with people digesting echo chambers of reality through because we have algorithms in our Facebooks or whatever that sits it down.

Bethan Laura Wood:

Yeah, that it's like you feel like you're looking at this huge universe and you understand and everybody's feeding back to you the same thoughts about X, y and Z. But the reality is it's just you're just being given one view multiple times and that seeing it multiple times with a slight, subtle difference every time, gives you a security feeling that that is then real, because you've you've been receiving the same information from multiple sources. But when you trace back those sources, we have this issue that that can often be only one source, but it's the algorithm is pinging it. So I found that really fascinating, that the kaleidoscope also kind of resonates a little bit with the thing we're struggling with right now. Then, things like internet is giving you, on the one hand, mass access and all this stuff and communication that you didn't have before, but on the other hand, it's also creating these kind of closed universes that don't feel closed when you're in them.

Sarah Gottlieb:

There's really nothing accidental in the kaleidoscope-orama project. Every little detail has been thoroughly thought through by Bethan, and I would love to hear her thoughts on working with the coloured veneer plates.

Bethan Laura Wood:

The way that, like industrial veneer is made, is stacks of sheets of slices of wood. So if you imagine like a tree trunk as a pencil going into a pencil sharpener, yeah, so to make an industrialized sheet that is stable, there's a process that you do where you take a tree trunk and you pencil sharpener it and then you make yourself these flat sheets and then by repressing these sheets and crossing grain or making movements in the way that they press together, that creates a way to make veneers that have like grain texture in them. So that's kind of the basic principle of these types of veneers. And when you, instead of layering together multiple tones of subtle brown or well, mainly all types of brown, because most wood's browns If you change that for different layers of colour, you get this kind of uncanny valley of mix between very artificial kind of colour and then wood grain surfaces. And I developed a technique or I looked at the way in which Alpi produces wood grain and when I've done previous projects with them, I've worked with veneers sheets that come from the middle of the process. So normally when you're doing a standardization you have to make a lot of them at one time to make sense and then the output has to have enough pattern registration or particular repeatable elements within the aesthetic and the color. That means that when you have one sheet and you photograph that one sheet, you can sell the other 200, a thousand sheets below it with that one image and people can marry them together and you can have a standardization of color or tone or pattern.

Bethan Laura Wood:

Okay, so, even with veneers that are like quite grainy in the wood, there's still a level of standardization that comes from them because of the system that they're for and the use they normally have. But in the middle of getting to those standardized boards, you hit this point where you create like really weird and bonkers sheets. Yeah, so I was really interested in finding a way where I could work with these types of sheets, but in a language where I could work with them to cover multiple pieces of furniture or work with the one-off nature that those patterns have. Um, so by developing what I call these book blocks, which is using a smaller scale press, then it allows me to make one block but tessellate it within itself to then make a uniformation from that kind of kaleidoscopic pattern, but then each partner of pages is unique. So it's this in between the mass and the one-off that I've always been interested in within my work. Yeah for me.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Veneers, and especially this specific type of veneer that you've used, is very kind of like a blown-up version of like wood grain, but then because of the way that you've colored it in the different colors, like the ones that I'm looking at here, is like orange purple, yeah, midnight blue and like fall green. It kind of disturbs this very natural material. Yeah, and can you just try and like what is your like? Because now you you know you've done a lot of like uh products with this surface. Yeah, why do you want to put so many colors into the veneer?

Bethan Laura Wood:

well, I think I was interested to work with a surface material that can have some of the conversations that I loved with the laminate, but in a way where the material itself is already looking at was designed almost as a material to be more sustainable than its counterpart, so the bones of these woods was to like replicate the kind of expensive hard grains. And Alpi is very um has invested to create, create its wood chains to be the most like sustainable and within their archive they have amazing things with lots of crazy colour, because there are windows where mass culture also decides to go more colourful, and I was just intrigued to see what happens when I work with some of these colours in a much stronger way but then have these elements of the kind of natural, non-natural patination making that is part of creating a kind of grain texture. Yeah, so within the kaleidoscoporama all the colours existed, so I didn't make any of these colors. These are colors that are all through the archive of alpi. So, be it like a sheet that they produce now or be it a sheet that they produced five years ago or 10 years ago, because of this system for production, you will always um over dye and create more one to act as a backup, so if there's an issue, that you have leftovers, and then also to act as an archive, so that if a client wants to reorder they have like samples, so they have all of these sheets, but unless somebody order, reorders that specific board and enough of it for them to be able to make it volume.

Bethan Laura Wood:

It's like all of these amazing sheets are kind of waiting until their day comes, or they're. They can't necessarily be used in the system that's there, but they are a result of that system. So I was intrigued to find another way to work with them. So I picked these colors all through the archive, then connecting like the groups of there's like three colorways of the veneers, and each one of those three is made up from five colors and those colors are the colors that they had at that time. But I was really intrigued by doing it. In this way I was able to create a system that could work for the way I wanted to work or that I had access to work in.

Sarah Gottlieb:

It's fascinating to hear Bethan describe the long process of creating the Kaleidoscope Orama project. It's also interesting for a color nerd like me that she dares to use so many different colors together, and I would love to hear from Bethan about what it means to her to work with such a colorful palette.

Bethan Laura Wood:

I don't think I'd done a project that was so colourful for a while, but I think with this project I just I don't know I felt like, especially because of this punch cartoon that was meant to be a negative, I really wanted to embrace it back. It's like there's a culture of like you reclaim the name or you reclaim the slur, and often because intense colour can be seen as not sophisticated or like, especially within the european context and I think we also have this kind of rose like not rose tinted, sepia tinted or like black and white tinted glasses of anything that was before color photography as being a certain way, because we have no visual record of it. Our first interactions with it will have been in a non-colourful manner, like the greek marbles that we uh all thought was wide. Yes, we even bleached them and and hurt them by laying on this combination of what people associated with them, because that's the only way that they've seen them. And then what was going on at the time that led that to be seen as the prim and proper way that these materials should be.

Bethan Laura Wood:

And the Roman sculptures were actually painted? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of evidence that they were. At least quite a lot of them were heavily painted in this. There's quite a few, if you go to the museum in Greece, that have like small traces of the paint and stuff like that. So I think it's this thing that like there's a lot of colour that we've all like we're magpies, we're drawn to it all the time but we kind of try and hide from that.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Yeah, so it's almost like fake news as well that like we thought that, oh, wow, back in, like like roman times, they did these immaculate, clean white sculptures and they actually didn't. But do you think because I think that's a quite interesting thought this idea about that color is, like you know, not sophisticated, or like, as you said in this cartoon, like looking down upon, like women and like the female gender, like not being able to have a political proper discussion and it was all like, oh, a mess of colors. Where does that like fear of color come from? Or like why is that?

Bethan Laura Wood:

I think it's because it stimulates us like a drug, yeah, and so I think when you see a lot of colors together, it can. It stimulates your eyeballs or it makes you have a reaction, and I think that can like we've put ourselves in a place where we've associated well, this is becomes associated with a particular kind of point in history that we have moved past yeah you know.

Bethan Laura Wood:

So there's a there. I mean, there's layers and layers of reasons why it's that bright colors or intensity of color has got associated in one direction or another. And I'm it's not that I'm saying that I like going in a minimal space or a beige space is wrong either. You know, I think it's just. I just find it fascinating that we suddenly like find comfort at some point in in going okay, at this point we're going to say this, and then we stick with that for a very long time and it creates the foundation. So, yeah, all cultural reference, you mean yeah, or it's like when you like, like going to Mexico, or when I go I've gone to India, or where I've gone to different places where the association, the base association with color is so massively different, much more vivid, it's more vivid, or it's just more accepted in all layers of life. Yeah, I find that fascinating and I enjoy working with colour, or I feel that it's something that I want to work with and so I do.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Well, yes, it's true that Bethan does do that. Everything about her beams of colour, the workshop, her work, her clothes and her makeup. But not everyone is into such a colourful world. So who does Bethan feel she designs for when she creates new work?

Bethan Laura Wood:

There is definitely a fine balance between the nuance of like only ever making things that you enjoy and then making something where, if you wouldn't even have it in your own home, why would you expect someone else to you know? But I also think at some point you also realize, like I don't think I'm good, I would ever be the person you to. I wouldn't say never. You know, give it, give me a try. But, um, my default isn't to do the minimal minimum and I think there are people that, like designers, artists, uh, other creatives that can make things that I can't make, that are on that more minimal side, or that use a different language or different stimuli to create connection. And instead of forcing myself to try and do that, I've realized that maybe I go the other way, go into, I lean into the layers and putting stuff together that way, because that's something that I can do yeah and can I do it?

Bethan Laura Wood:

well, all the time maybe not, but I don't. You know like I think. Uh, you know that's what's exciting is because you have to kind of learn at what point, when you have to, like, take the thing off the buckaroo before he, you know, the whole thing turns into a hot mess and stuff um. But I think I enjoy that challenge and I feel like we live in worlds that are made from so many layers, so why not design in ways where I can interact with that? Yeah, I don't know if that makes more, but maybe it's like is it?

Sarah Gottlieb:

could you say that I also that this like your approach both. You know, of course, for you the reason that you kind of throw yourself into this huge array of colors and sometimes materials as well, but it's because you actually kind of like the idea of everything being a little bit on the verge just before the explosion Not the explosion, but just before the explosion.

Bethan Laura Wood:

Yeah, I haven't thought of it that way. I'm digesting what you're saying. I suppose I do it not just with things that are with to do with color and pattern, but it's also to do with the thing, like even with the things that I make that are super transparent, like like totems, for example, which are these kind of glass stacks of hand-blown elements that I work with a wonderful man called piedro vero to produce. And when we are building these, there's a tipping point where, if the overall form and shape starts to read too much like where there's a dominance of like it's a clown or it's a jellyfish or it's a skyscraper, where that becomes like monolithic in in being the the headline, I try to move back away.

Bethan Laura Wood:

But it's a fine balance. It's a little bit like you're saying of like having the chaos before it explodes. I want there to be enough space in things where different people can find their own interest with it. So what might be a headline for one person, because of the references and the things that they percolate, would be different to another person. So it's like with the marketry somebody might see fossils and rocks and another person they see bacteria or fried eggs and another person sees sweets Because it's like there's enough space in the pattern where the person coming to interact with it can also bring something to the plate.

Sarah Gottlieb:

So maybe even actually going back to what you started saying, like with colors, that it's such a strong element that it touches all of us. We all have like a an emotional response.

Bethan Laura Wood:

Yeah, color yeah, whether you want to acknowledge it or not, or engage with it or not is a different thing, but I think it is. We do all have a response and I think that's so fascinating because it's something that's tangible and non-tangible, because it's like even I'm someone who works with color or enjoys to work with color or how buy things of color all the time, but I can't necessarily explain exactly why I like a particular color. We can I mean, we talked a bit on the science of why that might be, but it's. But I can't necessarily explain exactly why I like a particular colour. We talked a bit on the science of why that might be, but it's still.

Bethan Laura Wood:

I enjoy the mystery of it, the mystery and that you can't override. You can learn something to a point to try and be able to hit someone's button, but it's always a slight mystery. It's like it's like when creating a hit song. Yeah, you can. You can know all the like mechanical things in the world that should allow you to make a hit song. Yeah, and sometimes that will work, but sometimes it won't, because it's there's this magic thing that you can't always control what particular stimuli suddenly creates an emotional response. Yeah, and I think I find that color is one of these things that we can know so much about it within a certain level, within certain situations or certain cultures or certain countries. That allows us to work with it. But there is always a zeitgeisty bit of it that will tap in emotionally that you can't control, and I find that really exciting.

Sarah Gottlieb:

That's a great place to stop. I just want to say thank you, bethan.

Bethan Laura Wood:

No, thank you. I hope you have fun editing down my long monologues.

Sarah Gottlieb:

I'm just gonna put it on straight, not edit it. Yeah yes, it was a long conversation, but I think that Bethan has so many interesting things to say about color so it was very hard to stop. But now it's time to hear what Stephen has gotten out of the mint latte green color. Hi, Stephen Nice to see you. Nice to see you too. How have you been?

Stephen Burns:

I've been pretty well. I've been pretty well. Yeah, that's good.

Sarah Gottlieb:

I've been pretty well, that's good. Well, I'm back because you have worked on interpreting the color mint latte green into a piece of music.

Stephen Burns:

I owe you a song.

Sarah Gottlieb:

You owe me a song, you owe Bethan and the podcast and me and the world.

Stephen Burns:

Yeah, here to collect.

Sarah Gottlieb:

I'm here to collect the song of mint latte green.

Stephen Burns:

All right, I hope I can deliver that yeah.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Well, I'm very excited to hear what you've come up with. Do you want to tell me and us about the process?

Stephen Burns:

Yeah, so I think the brightness that element was something that I tried to play on and that vocal thing.

Sarah Gottlieb:

I tried something out. I'm excited. Yeah, first, time, groundbreaking, groundbreaking. First time in this podcast, this is huge.

Stephen Burns:

But then I came to my studio space where we are right now, and this tape machine. It's a crucial element of the process because with my setup you get eight tracks, eight different instruments or sources that you can run into this tape machine, and so you have kind of a limited amount. In digital terms that's very small. Even in analog terms it's pretty small. But it's a cool way to create because you have these restrictions.

Sarah Gottlieb:

I think it's quite interesting, like now I speak, like I've done this experiment a couple of times of course, both in the danish version of the podcast but also now in the new english version, and I think a lot of like musicians that I kind of um put through this experiment, yeah, all kind of resonant like afterwards, but like it's quite nice with the restriction and the quite strict brief. And then I'm just thinking like it's quite interesting with the tape machine. You're saying like that you only have like eight, what do you call it? Inputs, no tracks, tracks. Is that something like you know for you when you like normally create music, is that a nice thing for you or like?

Stephen Burns:

I do like it. I think when you're like demoing things out like digital is easier, you know you can hit a laptop rerecord, delete things undo, yeah, which you can't do with tape really no but when you get down to like creating a piece, it's really an integral part, I think, to the, to the process in some way, because I am, I record everything myself and I love recording it's super fun.

Stephen Burns:

It's, um, it's, it's an instrument itself. Yeah, and I think when you record digitally you don't lose that like you still get to get you to a brilliant song and emotional and beautiful recording, but in the process of making it makes a big difference. It's. It's really something, yeah, to uh, to consider you know the physical element of it and you don't just have an infinite amount of space and an infinite amount, you know it's a canvas yeah, essentially yeah, you can paint your house or you can paint this canvas.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Yeah, that half inch.

Stephen Burns:

Yeah, exactly A-tracks.

Sarah Gottlieb:

I love that. I'm excited. I think I want to say thank you, thank you, and I think we should ask all the listeners to put their headphones on and turn up the volume and get comfortable and close your eyes and then sit back and listen to this half inch of mint latte green.

Stephen Burns:

Yeah

Sarah Gottlieb:

Thank you very much for listening, as always, I really really appreciate it. If you like what you heard, please share it with someone you think will like it too, or go and give the podcast a review. I know that it really helps others to find it as well. That way, as always, it means a lot to me if you help me spread the word and if you want to see more about the work of Bethan Laurel Wood, check out my website, sarahgodlubdk, under the podcast section. This episode was sponsored by Montana Furniture.