Is there a link to how we are feeling and how our home is looking? An estimated 33 to 35 million U.S. adults are likely to experience depression at some point during our lifetime. The disease affects men and women of all ages, races, and economic levels. However, women are at a significantly greater risk than men to develop major depression. Studies show that episodes of depression occur twice as frequently in women as in men. Could their be a link between how our home environment looks and how we are feeling? Could there be a relationship between the color of our mood and the color on our walls? I recently began to notice the colors that were popular before the great recession, such as beige, brown, burgundy and a host of other dull colors and realized that we have a great recession color crises. Just like the colors of the great depression, which I think of as dull and depressing like many of the Ash Can School paintings. The Ashcan School, also called the Ash Can School, is defined as a realist artistic movement that came into prominence in the United States during the early twentieth century, best known for works
portraying scenes of daily life in New York's poorer neighborhoods.


Robert Henri Salome, 1909, not a typical Ash Can School allegory, however in keeping with mostly dull colors and depressing fatal subject matter.
As a design professional, it is not uncommon to run around making everyone's environment look incredible and come home to a environment less than desirable. Well from a design point of view it could be as simple as not respecting every space in your home as a design opportunity. We most often think of design as having to cost a lot of money. There is some truth to this in that to develop skills as a designer, of some merit, one has to invest in training which could cost in time and money or to hire a designer who has been trained which could cost in time and money. Many people will say, “Well my sister, brother, mother, dad, or whoever is a designer and they will do the work for free”. Now for anyone who has ever been involved in any kind of creative work we know that the most difficult person to work with is our family. We love them, however we most often can’t design for them due to their lack of respect for our professional ability. That’s just the way it is! My most recent discovery was in the last few days of how color could transform a nothing space into a place of interest. A nothing closet in now the gift wrap room painted in Benjamin Moore Laguna Blue2059-30 and wow is it awesome.

I just want to be in the closet all day long LOL.

Joseph Osborne
Co-founder Academy of Inspiration

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