Can Blind People See Color?

I received a call from a blind woman. She was unhappy with the colors in her closet because they weren't matching as perfectly as she would like. She felt there was something wrong. She had had her seasons done but something was still awry. She had been given my name as a person she could trust to do a professional job of telling her what colors were indeed her best and how to work with them.

If you are feeling at this point that you may have missed something and this article is not making sense, you can imagine how I felt. How many times have you heard a sighted person say, "I just can't see the difference between the two Spectrums," or "Those colors look fine to me."? Not to mention al the sighted people who are perfectly happy with their seasonal color swatches!

The scheduled appointment time came and I have to admit I was a little nervous. I wanted to be sure and handle this in an intelligent way and not make a fool of myself!

She came in with her seeing eye dog who sat patiently by her side as we analyzed her coloring. I'm afraid the education was mine more than hers. She was brilliant! I was impressed. Her ability to "see" was phenomenal. She was sharper than most of the sighted people I analyze. When I placed blue based and yellow based colors in front of her, she immediately referred to the blue based colors as the ones she always liked. She would hold the color swatches in her hand and feel them. After thinking a minute she would say "yes, I like this one better".

I was so amazed. She would say, "Now I know why I was unhappy with the colors given to me by the other color consultant". She was so relieved that I told her she was a blue based person and not yellow based. Seasonally she had been placed into yellow based colors. She had a strong feeling towards blue based colors and now knew why!

As the appointment went on, it became more and more apparent to me that this person's senses were acutely developed and there was very little difference between her and sighted people. In fact, she had a stronger awareness level of harmony than most of the people I dealt with that could see.

I finally couldn't resist any longer. I asked her if she had been blind all her life. She said, "Yes, ever since I was five." (She was 38 then.) I asked her why it was important to her to understand color harmony. And she said, "I don't want people to see that I am blind and feel sorry for me because I don't look put together. I love clothes and want to look my best."

She is a therapist and also felt it was important in her profession to look put together. She didn't want her clients to feel sorry for her. Her color combinations and image were very important.

I thought about her for days. Dr. Schauss was right, people, sighted or unsighted are affected by color. Color is an energy source as it is transmitted through light waves. We are all affected by color's influence and power.

Color harmony is and should be important to everyone.

We all need to take conscious awareness of our own color attitudes.

We might even want to take a minute to enjoy color. After all, its not just a sighted endeavor.