Blue Wall with Random Thoughts

ER Waiting Room,
Kosair Childrens Medical Center East
Tom Pfannerstill, 2010
Kentucky Museum of Arts & Crafts
Courtesy of Galerie Hertz

For as far back as I can remember, blue has been my favorite color. Not a weak, pale, pastel, baby blue, but a deep, dark, full-bodied one. Sure, the hot reds, oranges and yellows have their place, but itʼs the blues that are most relaxing, restful and peaceful. And cool too; like deep ocean water, like the sky in that brief moment just before fullnight dark when the heat of day subsides and gives way to the cool night air. Or the opposite, a quiet pre-dawn sky, just before the sun rises and signals the start of another active, busy day. It is the blue that I imagine Gillespie Magee was describing in his poem ʻHigh Flight,ʼ “...Up, up the long delirious, burning blue, Iʼve topped the windswept heights with easy grace...” It is this blue that Iʼm striving to depict and reference in ʻBlue Wall with Random Thoughts.ʼ It provides the backdrop for objects of various shapes and colors, some recognizable, some abstract. Their colors are enhanced by sheer contrast with the richness of the surrounding blue and vice versa. They represent random thoughts that float on and flow over and through this field of endless, yearning, healing, comforting, cooling, restful blue.