A Splash of Color
A few times a week (if I’m lucky and not burdened by work) I take a trip on the J train to go visit my mother and sisters in Jamaica, Queens. Now, for anyone who has ridden to this part of the city the final stop, Jamaica Center Parsons-Archer is like many other train stations; steel banisters and escalators, tarnished cream or grey steps and floors, that strange oppressive sent in the absence of air circulation. It makes for a pretty dreary environment until you come across the brilliant blue aluminum sculpture hung on the wall of one of the exits/entrances. It almost looks like a lost jewel fond in the sands of a beach.
The sculpture, a public artwork commissioned by the MTA and created by Sam Gilliam in 1991, is called Jamaica Center Station Riders, Blue. If the artist’s purpose was to present something that was pleasing to the eye for the general public, he definitely succeeded. The piece is composed of a large blue ellipse and an armature, a frame used by a sculptor to support a figure that is being modeled, that is red and yellow and all of which are made with aluminum. According to Gilliam, the work “calls to mind movement, circuits, speed, technology, and passenger ships…the colors used in the piece… refer to colors of the respective subway lines. The predominant use of blue provides one with a visual solid in a transitional area that is near subterranean.”
One could only view the work going up or down the stairwell that it is placed. Whenever one sees it, day or night, it is a pleasant reminder that one can find something beautiful in the least likely of places.
