Allyson Darakjian teaches at Clovis Community College and has multiple art degrees as well as a

degree in theology and psychology. She spent six months or more exploring her and others perceptions of the primary colors of red, blue, and yellow, and in her show Primary Works at

Porterville College she has used an interdisciplinary approach using mixed media paintings, Ink Studies, and more to portray her findings.

With vibrant colors she has used large layered paintings for Red, Blue, and Yellow, and wrote journal entries with her thoughts and feelings. From those writings she wrote poetry to accompany her paintings. 

She’s explored her journey into motherhood, her relationship with religion, but what actually prompted her to begin the process of exploration was her 5-year-old son’s question of where the colors of red, blue, and yellow came from, and she couldn’t explain that, and it left him, and then her dissatisfied.

Besides her paintings and writings Darakjian also wore the colors for six months, and took pictures of herself in various outfits and shared her findings on social media. 

She explained originally she thought the process would be more about color theory, but along the way it became more spiritual.

She said the color yellow has been a trickster the whole time, but she’d realized she needs yellow most of all.

There’s also a recorded tape of her speaking about her project that played during the art show.

When she spoke about her art and the show, which she views as performance art, Darakjian said she enjoyed the language process, and she’d read a lot about how artists like Piet Mondrian and others, poets, artists, and writers have related to the primary colors.

In her art pieces Darakjian said she used colored pencils, oil paints, watercolor, inks, and acrylic paint. She said the journals are like acrylic paint, the poems are like oils, you have to have patience with them and they’re more romantic.

Her small painting using blues, reds, yellows, and geometric shapes intentionally doesn’t go together, and it’st most striking. It’s titled Mother, Poet, Clown.

Of her large primary oil paintings she says, “The Red is direct, the Blue is very layered, and the Yellow has a line poem.

She wrote the journals for six months and was curious to find what sentence or lines stood out the most, and she used those to write the poems.

Her family and friends came to visit during the show. Her mother Lyndsey Arendsee, her father and in-laws, as well as her husband Gary Darakjian and their two sons, Ozzie, 3, and Artie, 5-and-half.

“I’m glad to be here because after months of watching her create the pieces, it’s wonderful to see the puzzle completely displayed on the wall. And it’s all very compelling,” her husband said.

A friend named Skye who was looking at Allyson’s Ink Studies, said, “Color is vibrational and sounds, it’s not just visual.”

Other friends and colleagues from Clovis Community College also visited the show.