Letter: Color-filled life
To the editor:
Spring is just about done and summer is now on its way. We are lucky that in addition to being able to grow spuds, Aroostook County can grow flowers. One only has to look along the streets and highways as home after home has some sort of flowering plant growing. Given the short growing season these plants are tough though they have yet to put the florists out of business. Colorful blooms are a perfect antidote to the late wintertime blahs. Just ask at the floral shop.
Color is important in our lives. Modern color theory is used in a whole range of situations and help to quickly communicate important information. Examples would be the flashing red and amber lights of fire and tow trucks or the blue lights of your friendly sheriff’s deputy or state trooper.
We are very lucky to still have a hospital in the community. Thanks to a state law and later legislation, Money is pouring into health care facilities to deal with the medical needs of people living here. Gone are the days of the old military green of hospital walls. Chances are you are put into a room that is white or an off white color. There are pictures on the wall. So someone at TAMC must have a slight mercurial streak for blandness. Rather than try to fill the hallways, entryways and offices with color and tribute, our eyes are assuaged by banal scenery. Boring.
Walking through the hallways makes the palace of the Minotaur seem modern. Doors look the same, door frames and title slates all the same. There are a few red and yellow labels but for the most part the scenery in the hospital is unremarkable and dangerously confusing. Some facilities have adopted a blue line to help people find their way out of the labyrinth. Pity that this idea is missing from the 90 percent of the hospital people need.
Undergoing a simple procedure, the picture on the wall was of a cowherd, small boy and fence in a snowstorm. By this time of the season one would expect to see some blooms or other color. It does not help that the wall colors are so filled with gray as to make a funeral director smile.
Why is it that with all the iPhones and cameras out there there are so few pictures of scenic Aroostook in the summertime? Why are so few photographers, painters, and artists represented on the walls of the local hospital? And why is it that color is not used to delineate different departments, exit doors, and other important information?
There are some places that make an effort to dress up the day. This is the exception rather than the rule.
Talk to any realtor and the first advice for selling a house is to put a fresh coat of colorful paint on everything. Put up some new pictures. Give people something to catch eyes and build traffic.
Perhaps one day the designers will design a hospital color scheme that reflects what we know to be true in Aroostook: That our colors are bold, beautiful and bounteous. Current color choices are proving to be worse than dirt.
Orpheus Allison
Castle Hill
