Thank you to the team at EnChroma for reaching out to me to be a part of this virtual exhibition to celebrate colorblind artists.  Colorblindness is fairly common in males, but I usually receive curious looks after people see my work and I tell them that I'm colorblind.  The technical term is "color deficient", but it's referred to colloquially as "color blindness".  Being color deficient, I can still see a certain range of colors, but it's difficult to explain how I see the world.
  I've known about my colorblindness since I was young and I used to have a hard time differentiating between the crayons (still do!).  But as I started painting, I learned about the importance of value (light and dark) and it made me feel empowered.  I also use my palette to learn about the colors of the world by mixing a color and making comparisons; I find myself using my color palette like a visual aid to help interpret colors as I mix.
   As an artist, I gravitate more towards subtle colors.  But even being colorblind, I love the colors of nature (flowers especially) and I enjoy experimenting to find new ways of seeing and understanding the world around me through painting.
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​https://enchroma.com/es/blogs/seeing-differently-a-celebration-of-color-blind-artists/eric-santoli

  For anyone who missed my lecture or for anyone who wants to watch it again: it is now available to watch online through the Atelier at Flowerfield's Youtube Channel.  It's also time-stamped so you can go back to specific parts of the lecture.  You can watch it here on my blog by clicking the "play button" below.

  One thing I think about a lot is how I started doing the things that I love.  What are the crucial moments where I said, "I want to do that".  I think about these moments as windows of inspiration; they are basically times in my life, people and other experience that have really influenced me.
  For instance, I started drawing as a kid and really felt my first burst of excitement for drawing when I watched Dragon Ball Z.  I vividly remember being 9/10 years old and desperately wanting to draw like Akira Toriyama (the creator of Dragon Ball Z).  I was really influenced by some early drawing books that I had and that I got at the elementary school library.  I remember having one drawing book that showed you how to draw Yoda from Star Wars and I drew it and felt completely addicted.  I'm not really into Star Wars, but that drawing book changed my life.  A few years later I remember watching a PBS documentary about John Singer Sargent and they showed a portrait that Sargent painted of John D. Rockefeller; I was blown away by this also--I can't even really explain the feeling of intense fascination.
 Flash forward to when I was at the Pennsylvania Academy and I met my friend, Asem Ahmed, and he introduced me to the work of William Bouguereau.  I was subsequently obsessed with Bouguereau for the next 5 years.  I still love Bouguereau, but I've become more interested in other painting styles.
 Later, I worked at Sotheby's auction house in 2013.  They had an exhibition space on their upper level floor so I went upstairs and was looking at an exhibition of works for sale and they had one painting by an artist that I had never heard of: Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida.  This is the painting that was in the exhibition sale.  The photo doesn't do it justice, but I was completely blown away by it.  The light and color hit me so hard and I still haven't shaken the feeling.  I later visited the Museo Sorolla in 2018 and came back with an urge to paint en plein air in bright sunlight.  Those plein air paintings became the basis for my application portfolio to apply for the Munn Fellowship Award.  I think a part of my interest in impressionist painters is also because of my colorblindness.  Maybe I should have been more of a tonalist painter, but I can't help but having a love affair with the impressionist palette of colors.
  My art is also influenced by the work of Hayao Miyazaki.  While I was in college, I had a writing teacher at PENN who introduced me to Miyazaki.  I've become a complete Studio Ghibli fanboy since then.  The narratives, artwork and style of Miyazaki films have left a deep impression on me.
  Another thing I love to do is skateboarding.  I was interested in skateboarding at a young age and one memory that is burned into my mind is seeing a guy who lived down the street skateboarding, I saw him skating and was enamored.  All I know is his name was Bill and he had really long hair, but I want to thank him for that brief window of inspiration.
  A larger window of inspiration was from my Opa.  I'm continually inspired by him because he loved Motorcycles, engines and he also was good at drawing; my Mom says I have the same sense of humor and I look like him also.  (He was colorblind too).  I still remember the smell of his motorcycles in his garage.
   I also feel thankful that I grew up in the early internet and pre-cellphone days because you often had to get inspiration first hand or hear things through the grapevine instead of seeing them on youtube or wherever; it has more power and impact when you get the first hand experience.  I could go on and on, but I just want to keep my eyes and ears open and try to keep cool people around me, read good books and most importantly to just keep doing what I love.  

  Really fascinating look into the process of natural dyeing.  As an artist who's interested in pigments and colors of the past, this really interested me.  I think a big part of my desire to study color and the history of color is because of my own colorblindness (color deficiency).  I always felt a need to try and conquer my colorblindness and maybe train my eyes to see color.  Of course that's not how it works, but I love color regardless.