18 | Oregon Home OH: What’s your relationship to color and how has it developed? Herrera: My earliest memories as a child are highly saturated with color, and I spent a lot of time as a kid and teen trying to make my surroundings as colorful as possible. My parents had this rule that I could paint my bedroom whatever color(s) I wanted, as long as I did it myself. So I did! To this day, no amount of color scares me or turns me off. I approach everything I do in life through this lens—whether it’s the clothes and accessories I put on my body, the art I make in my personal practice, or the spaces I create for myself or my clients. How has your relationship to color changed now that you have decided to become a designer and put up your shingle as a color expert? A fine-art practice is first and foremost for yourself. Once it’s out of your hands and in the world, it doesn't belong to you anymore. But when you’re conducting a consultation, or designing a space for a client, you very much do have someone else’s interests, needs, comfort, safety and happiness at stake. And it’s super important to me and my practice that I listen to those interests and needs carefully. How do you connect a client’s personhood to colors? Everyone sees and interprets color in unique ways, and it’s not my place to impose my own preferences onto others—especially where their personal spaces are concerned. Instead, I guide them toward the best possible solutions based on how they want to feel in a space, how they want it to function and what types of behaviors they want to elicit. PHOTO BY TIM SAPUTO
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