One of the projects that have recently preoccupied my time is an artists' adult colouring book as a fundraiser for Eastern Edge
Gallery. This idea came from the
ever-resourceful Mary MacDonald and as soon as the Board of Directors heard about
it we were all in agreement. The
difficulty was that we needed to pull it together in less than two weeks so
that it would dovetail with an auction.
I volunteered; yes I really do need to get my head checked. But, we did it with some serious team
effort!
One of the beauties of an artist-run centre is that you are
sitting on a powder keg of talent.
It was not difficult to find artists willing to trade a drawing for a
year's membership. And Louis
Atkinson from the board came up with the idea of making funky crayons to go
with the book. He melted down
crayons into moulds to form rainbow colouring tools in the shape of hearts,
stars and skulls.
The reason why I share this project with you is that I
became aware that adult colouring books are a trend. Aside from the latest novelty retail item I suspect the
trend says something about us as a society and of course that's where Gloria
gets excited. While working on the
book for Eastern Edge I started noticing colouring books for adults in gift
shops, bookstores and even (I was told) Wal-Mart. A little sleuthing on the net and I realized that colouring
books for adults were a retail avalanche in the publishing sector.
I find tracking advertising and marketing very rewarding, as
these tend to be very strong indicators of the social significance of an object
or activity. In other words, what
were they really selling? What
were consumers hoping to attain with the purchase of a colouring book? Usually, you look for a benefit or a need met. At first glance, it was
relaxation. I noticed the word
"calm" in titles. So,
this was one more relaxing hobby that didn't really require skills. Then came "creativity" as
colouring books were touted to stimulate your artistic side - using that other side of your brain. This surprised me a little because I thought colouring inside the lines was the very definition of conformity. (However, some of the most interesting books leave pregnant blank spaces to lure you into creative play.) It was also associated with the adult reclaiming of
childhood activities.
Next, I started thinking about the angle…there's always an
angle to tweak our interest. So,
you will find colouring books that are themed to sell to those with a specific
interest in a book, like the Secret Garden, or a pop culture theme like Star
Wars, the Game of Thrones or even a twist on Christianity - like
martyrdom! Get those extra red
crayons ready. There are also ways of
differentiating adult colouring books through content. I found one book, Colouring for
Grownups with sardonic activity pages that ask you to do things like tell the
hipster from the homeless.
Some of the largest selling titles in publishing according
to Amazon and other platforms have been colouring books. How curious that the most recent saviour
of the publishing world will be one almost devoid of words.
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