Elyse Dumas Object of Color

“The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the sea.” – Isak Dinsesen

In times of trouble or despair I have always found a sense of peace with water.  Be it the rain, a pool, a bath or an ocean, these things have always given me hope and perspective.  Aside from the fact I started swimming at an early age and was actively involved in aquatic activities for my entire life, I have no explanation for this effect.

              Blue is typically associated with calm and comfort, but water is not always blue.  Does this mean that when water does not appear blue it does not have the same effect? Possibly for most people, but I usually get the same effect. Whatever your troubles, they seem smaller when looking out at a lake, ocean, or a still pond.  When I swim I feel strong and in control.  In the rain I feel peaceful.

              Last month I discovered the word thalassophile.  Thalassophile: (n) a person who loves the sea, oceans. I like this definition and find that it relates to the quote I have chosen well.  Sweat and tears are known to cure.  Exercise gives you endorphins which make you happy, and tears get the bad feelings out of your system (for lack of a scientific explanation).  There doesn’t seem to be a reason to love the sea, but it certainly works.

Maddy Dattilo Video

"Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh."

-Henry David Thoreau

I started out this process with the quotation.  I then discovered an object I found very appropriate, on a couple of different levels.  My object is a black ceramic piece that I created a few years ago; I don't remember exactly how many.  I do remember, however, being very depressed at that time in my life.  I would sit at the potter's wheel staring into my clay pieces as if they promised escape.  I feel like this piece is particularly symbolic of that, in both its color and general composition.  It represents my own sorrows tended to, in a way.  It was birthed of a regretful depression.   I think the color of it seems blunt and lacking nuance, at first sight, but near the final shot, you can start to see the cracks in its varnish.  The hole that leads into the main chamber of this ceramic piece is small, yet that makes its hollowness nonetheless.  I suppose the connection between my quotation and my video is a rather personal one, but I don't think this makes it nonexistent.  I think it represents what can happen if you nourish your sorrows and regrets,  in a healthy way. It causes one to appreciate what is perhaps new and equally impactful, without discrediting the beauty of past sorrowful experiences.  And I believe my video not only subjectively represents this idea, but does so in an objective manner as well.

Rebecca: It's Electric- Colored Object and Text

Lyrics from the Electric Slide song, courtesy of elyrics.net: "Some say it's mystic; It's electric; Boogie woogie, woogie; You can't resist it; It's electric; Boogie woogie, woogie; You can't do without it; It's electric; Boogie woogie, woogie;Jiggle-a-mesa-cara she's a pumpin' like a matic; She's movin' like electric; She sure got the boogie." My sister's shoes are bright (electric) blue and purple with some green and they scream "energy" to me. Though the song is from 1976, it makes me think of the 80s with the sound of the music as I picture brightly colored clothing and people dancing. When someone hears the electric slide, I doubt anyone thinks of black and gray; since the song is upbeat and "electric," color can be associated with it. Though these lyrics are obviously repetitive, I think the constant interjections of "it's electric" relates to my sister's tennis shoes. Though colorful tennis shoes are pretty common now, they still stand out to me every time I see a pair. So anytime my sister wore those shoes this past weekend, I always noticed since they stood out... it's like the shoes are always saying "I'm electric." Someone could be tired and in black sweats, but if they have colorful shoes on, then I usually make an assumption that they're fun to a certain extent. Like the lyrics of this song, they communicate energy. Also, the line "she's movin' like electric" relates to my sister's shoes because they're tennis shoes, communicating that she is active while wearing them. She did, indeed, take a run in the bright shoes, but even if she didn't, the bright colors and the combination of them represent energy... which extends to the idea of motion. Based on context, people associate colors with certain emotions and attitudes, and my sister's shoes makes me think of a peppy, energetic attitude like that in the Electric Slide song. I think that's the important thing about Bluets and this short assignment: thinking about different ways to portray an idea or emotion and the fact that one idea can be communicated or enhanced with the use of something else. My example shows that I connect colors to emotions based on their brightness, which isn't anything surprising or profound, but it's an interesting way to think about how I could describe an object, text, or emotion to explain something.

Colton Taylor Object of Color

“We cannot do anything with an object that has no name” - Maurice Blanchot

This little beauty has been in my life longer than many people I know and love. Up until I was about 8 years old I always said green was my favorite color, because it was, and that pink and purple were girl colors, as a child might say, but this stigma was completely changed by my first ever game console, my Nintendo game cube. Released in November 2001 this dear object is way more than just a console to me. I have personified this object so much that the day, I pray will never come, but the day it stops working I may have to hold a funeral for her. Objects mean different things to different people, and this one object means more than it probably should to me. Maurice is very correct in stating that we cannot do anything with nameless objects and my Gamecube is no exception. It first turned me on to the color purple, which to this day remains one of the most ascetically pleasing colors to my eye. In 5^th grade I almost made a grave mistake by trading it in to get a bonus value for trading it in for a Nintendo wii, since it could also play game cube games. When I went in and was told that I needed a controller, so I would have had to buy one of their cheapest ones and sell it back to them, and even after adding three of my own games to add to the price I was only going to receive ten dollars for her. That day I made the smartest decision of my life and said no to the store clerk and walked out with my baby, who to this day has never left my side, and currently resides in my dorm room. Objects such as my gamecube with greater sentimental value are more than just a source of entertainment or a price tag, they hold a special place in our hearts that even if I were to get a different game cube it wouldn’t mean as much to me as she does.

An Object of Color-Andrew Moul

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

Self-Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson

When Emerson wrote this section of Self-Reliance, he was trying to communicate that no matter what, it is okay to be misunderstood. He talks about speaking in ‘hard words’, and emphasizes that even if you contradict yourself, do so with confidence and certainty. He recognizes that if we do contradict ourselves, we may be misunderstood. He then goes on to equate being misunderstood with greatness, and lists many ‘greats’ who, in their day, were misunderstood. The object, or objects of a color that I chose were pieces of abstract art. The video I chose is just a basic explanation of what abstract art can be. Each piece of abstract art has a color. This color can be intentional, or it can be a result of circumstances. Nevertheless, each piece has a color. Unlike other styles of art, the meaning and motive behind creating abstract art can be slightly ambiguous. It is often unclear as to what each of these pieces can represent. These pieces are often, misunderstood. Abstract art can also be used to convey a message that goes against traditional thoughts and ideas. It can be used, to contradict. In my project, I’d like to focus on being confident in what I have to say. Bold does not always have to be loud and neither does confidence. It just has to be intentional. Through the process of creating my project, I want to be intentional. But I also want to be misunderstood. Great.

Mikitka - Quote/Color

“i want to apologize to all the women i have called beautiful

before i’ve called them intelligent or brave

i am sorry i made it sound as though

something as simple as what you’re born with

is all you have to be proud of

when you have broken mountains with your wit 

from now on i will say things like

you are resilient, or you are extraordinary

not because i don’t think you’re beautiful

but because i need you to know

you are more than that”

― Rupi Kaur

This quote really speaks to me and my project as a whole because I feel passionately about the quality of women and how they are treated in today’s society. I think so much of our culture puts value on a woman’s appearance and body instead of her mind, and what I’m aiming to do is bring attention to that and call for a stop to it. Obviously my subject matter deals with people taking advantage of women and their bodies, but the fact still stands- women are first seen as objects to look at before anything else. This quote shows that and also challenges that, which is exactly what I want to do. As for my object of color, I chose poppies. I have a poppy plant that sits on my window sill and it is the only brightly colored object in my room, so it always draws my eye. Firstly, I love the color of poppies because of how vibrant they are. But they also have a really important history that I don't think many people really acknowledge. The poppy became the symbol of WWI after the flowers started growing around the graves of the buried soldiers. I think it's really poetic to have something to beautiful symbolize something so gruesome and horrible. In the larger sense of my project, I think the subject matter of females being more than just objects is incredibly important to my message. I have been thinking a lot about having a very monochromatic color scheme in my video, but I think it might be interesting to play around with the concept of the color red appearing every now and then.

Object/ Text Excerpt

“Vulnerability is not weakness. And that myth is profoundly dangerous. Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change” — Brene Brown

 The theme of this quote has been on mind a lot as of recent. I’ve pushed away one of my biggest supporters in my life (my mother) over the last few years due to minor conflicts. Instead of speaking with her I chose to bury my feelings and hold grudges. Whether the issue was between her and me or within myself I’ve been afraid to confront my mom with my problems. Vulnerability is the birthplace of change and I guess I’ve been afraid to change the relationship between my mom and I—seeing as she’s been my friend since birth. My mom got me a keychain of a gorilla when she traveled for work about ten years ago and I’ve kept it ever since. The fact that the mountain gorilla is critically endangered is interesting because that’s how I’ve felt about the relationship between me and my mother—I was convinced that once she chose to move 1,000 miles away from me years ago our relationship would die off but as of now I’ve been trying hard to rekindle the strong son-mother relationship we had by telling her everything I’ve ever felt. But, of course it’s scary to allow large changes in a rekindling relationship (especially with your mother) but I’m hoping vulnerability will take our endangered relationship and friendship to new heights.

 **I'm away for the weekend and my keychain is in my apartment but here is a similar stock photo**
 

Cycles

 “Only after disaster can we be resurrected. It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything. Nothing is static, everything is evolving, everything is falling apart.” - Chuck Palahniuk. It is strange to think of death and destruction as something that is beneficial. That pain could bring with it strength and freedom. That for someone to grow they first must be broken in some way. This reminds me of military training as well as how muscles are built. In order for the military to strengthen you, they berate you when you go through cadet training. They say this is to break you down so that they can rebuild you to make you stronger. In order for muscles to grow they must be torn, stretching and elongating until they tear apart. The muscles heal and grow larger than they previously were as a way of ensuring that they can’t be torn again. It’s almost like you are subconsciously evolving. Unknowingly changing yourself to combat the destruction of your environment. It is very cyclical. Pain. Growth. Pain. Growth. For some odd reason this made me think of rubber bands. I guess I made the connection between destruction and resurrection with that of the elongation and contraction of rubber. The ebb and flow back and fourth nature of rubber bands is something that I visualize to be cyclical.

Cat Pagano - Keys and Strangers

Dear Reilly Flaherty,

I found your wallet and your drivers license had your address so here's your credit cards and other important stuff. I kept the cash because I needed weed, the metro card because well the fare's $2.75 now, and the wallet cause it's kinda cool. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Toodles,

Anonymous

Interactions between people can often be unexpected. Bizarre really. This correspondence between an average Joe and someone who seems to be a homeless man is no exception. It happens. Wallets are stolen all the time. Unusual, though, is the fact that someone found a wallet, kept the contents (and the wallet itself) yet returned the owner’s driver’s license and credit cards – that is just not something that happens every day. Isn’t it somewhat charming? He was genuine and earnest with his reasoning for everything. In the strangest way, it kind of restored my faith in humanity. A man with nothing to his name could still find the decency within him to return the (partial) belongings of a man he doesn’t even know? Now, that’s pretty cool. Questionable as to why, but after reading this letter, the first object I thought of was a key. After thinking more deeply about it, a key is a symbol of trust. Keys open and close the barriers between houses, cars, jewelry boxes, and success. Some may start with a certain silver sparkle only to fade while others maintain their polish and shine. You wouldn’t just give the key of your car to anyone – it would only go to someone you trust. Although they didn’t know each other, the average Joe and this anonymous homeless man exchanged a possession. They now share a trust and more figuratively, a key.

Fuchsia Cats

"It was only a smile, nothing more. It didn't make everything all right. It didn't make ANYTHING all right. Only a smile. A tiny thing. A leaf in the woods, shaking in the wake of a startled bird's flight. But I'll take it. With open arms. Because when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time, and maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting." It was a rough week, a stressful week, a homesick-week. On Tuesday, it started to get better. I received a card. I tore open the envelope and I saw the blue eyes of the cats, the fuchsia of the petals, and I smiled. The bright colors jumping off the surface, screamed directly at me, and urged me to feel better and brighter. The hope and sincerity embedded in the deep blue eyes of the kittens rubbed off on me. I was beginning to feel joy. Why does this make me happy? Why do cats in flowers make me happy? I think it was the brightness of the fuchsia, and the energy that it contained, that made me smile. It might have been the softness and innocence of the blue that gave me hope. The words on the inside hardly mattered to me because it was the object itself that made me smile. It did not make everything better, but it made me feel loved. It’s the small things that affect people: a get-well soon card, a greeting while passing in the hallway. A small act can go a long way and that tiny 6 x 2 inch card on that Tuesday morning went a long way for me.

Bluet Post

The passage in Bluets that speaks to me the most is, “We just don’t get to choose.” I feel like this speaks to what the book is about so far because the author talks about how she has fallen in love with the color blue, and how she has fallen in love with someone in the past who has broken her heart, and both of those instances of love happened without an active choice she made to start having feelings or preference for one thing over another. Sometimes you don’t get to choose what speaks to you, or what moves you emotionally, you just find yourself being affected by something. I believe the author found that connection with the color blue as she retraces moments in her past that led her to falling in love with this color. Similarly, when it comes to relationships and falling in love with a person, we often don’t get to choose whom we have feelings for. Sometimes you just find yourself crushing on the person who is supposedly “so not your type” or someone you would “never go for” and yet, you inexplicably find yourself having a connection to them. Since the person the author is referencing seems to have broken her heart, or at least scarred her emotionally in some way, I would say that she is referencing this instance with this passage. She was hurt by someone she loved, but at the end of the day she is making the argument that you don’t always have a choice with you might fall in love with.. I believe this passage is important to the book so far because it sums up both of the main discourses the book seems to be featuring.

Bluets post 1

I located two stanzas, which are pretty closely related and which i think speak to the "larger project" of the book so far.  They also just speak to me:

"71.  I have been trying, for some time now, to find dignity in my loneliness.  I have been finding this hard to do.
72.  It is easier, of course, to find dignity in one's solitude.  Loneliness is solitude with a problem.  Can blue solve the problem, or can it at least keep me company within it?  --No, not exactly.  It cannot love me that way; it has no arms.  But sometimes I do feel its presence to be a sort of wink--Here you are again, it says, and so am I."  (p.28)

In times of extreme loneliness, humans often have a tendency to turn to something, someone, almost anything, often in an act of desperation, to fill what they perceive as a void of sorts.  And it's apparent in stanza seventy-one that Nelson is struggling with loneliness.  She explicitly state that she has not been successful in finding dignity in feeling lonesome.  This is why I particularly like the sentence "Can blue solve the problem, or can it at least keep me company within it?"  I think she's probably more spot on with the latter thought, but either way this is a perfect example of our human tendency to feel the sometimes frantic need for emotional fulfillment.  "Something is lacking and so someone or something must be found to stop this feeling", is all too common of a thought process, yet also arguably a permanent and somewhat unavoidable part of being human.

Bluets, so far, seems to explain, almost in a collage of different styles and quotes and words, a fairly complex relationship between a woman and the color blue.  Nelson presents a contrast between her relationship with the color, and that with ex-romantic partners (of the human variety), which I believe is very effective in helping communicate to the reader the nature of her relationship with the color.  Blue is a constant in her life and I'd be willing to bet in her mind as well, and I have not yet noticed any indication of Nelson viewing it as anything other than an eternal love affair of sorts.  Her presumably former relationship with a man, however, seems undependable, sporadic, and certainly finite.  The nature of her relationship with blue, and the mere idea of falling in love with a color, is extremely thought-provoking to me, as I believe the entire novel is.

Kati Davis Bluets Passage

"One of the men asks, Why blue? People ask me this question often. I never know how to respond. We don't get to choose what or whom we love, I want to say. We just don't get to choose." Although it is only on the fifth page, this particular passage immediately stuck out to me while reading Bluets. To be honest, I'm having some difficulty interpreting the meaning behind Bluets (but then again, that may be the point Maggie Nelson is trying to make: human beings have this ridiculous, innate desire to construct meaning in everything we come across, even things like color. But I digress.) The speaker begins the book with the sentence "Suppose I were to begin by saying that I had fallen in love with a color," and she goes on to justify this love and her desire to express it in writing to a group of men during a job interview. Her claim "We don't get to choose what or whom we love" seems to be referring to more than just the color blue, and we find out throughout the course of the book that she had recently been cheated on by a personwith whom we presume she was in love before (and even after) they broke her heart. The speaker spends most of the book focusing on the color blue, describing and personifying and exploring it in depth, but she also will occasionally speak to and about her former lover directly (ex. p. 4 - "Above all, I want to stop missing you.") This is what leads me to believe that her fixation on the color blue is both an analogy and a distraction for her as she processes the grief following her lover's betrayal. The speaker may recognize that the relationship was unhealthy and that she should have moved on from it by now, but she epitomizes the lack of power humans have over their hearts' decisions with the phrase "We just don't get to choose."

Bluets Blog Post

The part of the book that spoke to me was on page 25. The quote was speaking about how the things she treasure are blue yes, but she doesn't go out of her way to find these items. She treasures blue things that are rare, or have sentimental value. I think this speaks to a larger part of the book because she is trying to pass on a message about how things that are valued shouldn’t be based on monetary value, but instead based on sentimental value. Throughout the book she talks about her obsession with the color blue, and how she loves it. I thought this really stuck out to a larger part of the book, because although she is speaking about how she does love blue things, it’s the smaller things that should have the most meaning. Like a blue dye that someone gave her a long time ago, that she has to remember them by, or different blue rocks that she has dug up. I think she is trying to pass along the idea that people should truly cherish things they possess for the effort it went into to get this item, or the thought behind it, but not just the price that was paid to acquire it alone.

Rebecca- Bluets Response

It took me a little while to understand the narrator and where this book was going. Throughout the first 50 pages, the narrator unravels her thoughts and experiences and let us understand the situation/topic of the book. It does not follow a chronological timeline; she jumps around in time and takes moments in between to talk about related occurrences. The narrator has a very distinct voice, and her personality and emotions show through her writing. The section on pages 33 and 34 about The Deepest Blue book is interesting and illustrative of her unique storytelling. This is one of the times that she takes a step back from the situation of sadness and love of blue to talk about a specific event. There is great "showing" rather than "telling" in this book. This section ties everything together. She was drawn in by the book because the title included the word "blue," she then put the book back on the shelf when she read that it was about how women face depression, and then she orders that same book online months later. The reader gets a sense of the shift in her self-perception over the period of time as she later identifies herself as needing the book that she earlier rejected. She follows this with a story about going to a Brooklyn hospital and explains the idea that women can endure, but should not have to endure, more pain than men. We get the description of what's going on, but she constantly responds to what she is observing with her thoughts. I kept getting a clearer understanding of her situation as she contextualized with examples and thoughts.

Cat Pagano - Bluets

As a whole, this book is like none I have ever read before. The way it is partitioned into so many short paragraphs seemed to be quite confusing to me but as I continued to read, it began to become more clear. From my interpretation, Maggie Nelson's goal for this piece is to summarize and discover her definition and conceptualization of the color blue. It is uncertain as to whether Nelson began writing the book with a known definition of the color or whether she is writing the book to find out. Regardless, there is one section that speaks to the overall Bluets project -- part 52. This story in particular contains a series of questions which I believe do a good job at outlining Nelson's investigation. When Nelson asks her reader, "what is the color of a puddle? Is your blue sofa still blue when you stumble past it on your way to the kitchen for water in the middle of the night; is it still blue if you don't get up, and no one enters the room to see it?" I believe that she is also asking herself the same questions. By asking her readers these questions, perhaps she herself is finding the answers. I am curious to see if a conclusion is ever reached about the color blue and if my hypothesis about the project of the book is correct.

Mikitka- Bluets

The passage that I feel reflects the main focus on the book so far is passage 79. Nelson says "For just because one loves blue does not mean that one wants to spend one's life in a world made of it." She goes on to talk about how our life is like a string of beads and how different moments of your life are different colored beads, but the quote I chose seemed the most relevant.
I think this speaks a lot to the focus of the book because Nelson talks about how falling in love was like a rush of blue, and how her depression is blue, and that she can never really define blue. But just as she once had a love and struggles with depression, she also wants to live in a world where there is sometimes not blue. The man she loved broke her heart and the depression caused her to live in a world of blue. Escaping from the blue temporarily would also allow her to escape the pain.
In this section I think Nelson is just saying that while she loves blue and the things she associates with them, sometimes those blues are too much for one person. I think for the book as a whole, she is trying to tie together things that mean a lot to herself and her life and draw a connection between them and the essence of the color blue.

Larry Law Bluets Blog

There were a number of passages that stuck out to me, but the one I am choosing to discuss is passage 22. In this section Nelson is telling us how much blue stands out to her and the emotions it evokes compared to other colors. While she does not do this literally, the language she chooses to use to describe other colors is drastically different. For instance, she refers to the yellow she sees as "baby-shit yellow", while the blues tend to carry a more positive connotation, such as "piercing, pale..." and "decent, industrial..." The yellow paint is seen as deteriorating, while blue light attempts to creep through the space it leaves behind. Clearly, the color blue has a great effect on her and I think what she says here really show how much it is distinguished from other colors in her eyes. Blue are able to do things that other colors cannot, "The faded periwinkle of the abandoned Mobil gas station on the corner was suddenly blooming." I suspect that if the gas station was painted another color, it would not have the same effect on Nelson. What I believe Nelson is trying to tell the reader is that there are things in the world that effect us all differently, some things may change how we view the world or help us cope with past experiences.

Andrew Moul-Bluets-Response One

At first, it was very difficult for me to adapt to Maggie Nelson’s style of writing. I liked the way she uses numbers to separate her different thoughts and anecdotes; however, I thought that the book at first was very hard to understand. As I continued to read, I felt that it became easier to put things together because I now had more pieces of the puzzle, or puzzles for that matter. It seems to me that she jumps from one story or one author’s ideas to another and eventually circles back to each one to give us more of the story. In part 42, she poses the question, “Was I too blue for you?”. I think that at this point in the story, this is one of the main issues that she is trying to understand. She is trying to figure out what went wrong with a previous relationship. Often, it seems that she relates love to blue, but at other times she relates blue to something else. It is almost as if each of the separate stories and others’ ideas that she shares, blue means something different. It could be love, or pain, or confusion. She doesn’t seem sure. I think that by writing this book, she is trying to uncover what ‘blue’ actually is and what role it plays in her life. Is it a color that she finds appealing, is it representative of her feelings and emotions? What is ‘blue’?

Elyse Dumas Bluets

Passage 54 in Bluets stands out to me.  This section speaks of how “long before either wave or particle” philosophers and scientists were trying to decipher light and colors.  Whether by wave from the eye to the object, vice versa, or a mix of both, they all held different opinions on how the phenomenon worked; all of which I think were attempts to explain the feeling and meaning of sight.  This section is one of the few that talks about a more direct and factual aspect of colors, rather than thoughts or recanting of experiences and opinion.

I think passage 54 speaks to the larger part of the book by trying to explain and rationalize the phenomenon of color, even though this passage does not directly mention the color blue (and therefore the main theme in the book).  Maggie Nelson might have written this section because she connected with these philosopher’s interpretation of what they were seeing and their fascination behind it, or quite possibly to rationalize her own fascination with the color blue by rooting sight/light/color with facts, history, and science.  I think rationalizing these feelings are what she is trying to accomplish and portray in this section. 

              I have really enjoyed this book so far. I find her thoughts to be interesting and her style of writing to be unique.  I never would have found this book to read on my own but I am glad we are studying it. 

Mark Machi Bluets

Bluets is a very unique read. I found that it was somewhat difficult to grasp what exactly was going on at first, however as I progress through the pages themes started to become evident. Nelson’s writing seems fragmented and disjoined at times, but it is all connected around one center point, the color blue. But it is more than just about the color blue. It is about meaning, or “what it means to me, apart from meaning”, as Nelson puts it. I believe one specific passage does a good job of addressing the larger aspects of the book. The passage reads as follows, “I’ve heard that a diminishment of color vision often accompanies depression, though I do not have any idea how or why such a thing is neurologically possible. So what would it be a symptom of, to start seeing colors—or, more oddly, just one color—more acutely? Mania? Mono- mania? Hypomania? Shock? Love? Grief?” This passage manages to encompass the main themes and meanings that Nelson repeatedly addresses throughout the book, specifically, the overarching relationship with the color blue and love. Nelson seems to indicate that she might be in love with the color blue, which is why she is so fascinated with it, and she beings to question the reasons why she is obsessed with the color. Is it because of love, or is it some sort of sickness that she has somehow managed to obtain? This connects to the other themes of the book dealing with pain and grief.

Alex Kupp Bluets Blog

Section 38: "For no one really knows what color is, where it is, even whether it is. (Can it die? Does it have a heart?) Think of a honeybee, for instance, flying into the folds of a poppy: it sees a gaping violet mouth, where we see an orange flower and assume that it’s orange, that we’re normal." This quote really speaks to Nelson's overarching goal for this book. I think this quote challenges the reader to think of color in ways we haven't thought about it before. Falling in love with a color implies that a color has the ability to love back. And this book does a great job of showing the personification of the color blue through Nelson's hardships with love. Personifications is an interesting rhetorical tool which can foster a lot of emotion. The use of it in this book allows the reader to really think about people in their life and think about color and maybe even other inanimate objects with the same personification qualities. I also find it interesting to associate the color blue with all the somber things happening in Nelsons life. The choice of the color she becomes infatuated with speaks volumes about what the color blue really means. 

Oliver Banton Bluets Blog

I have found this book to be very interesting so far. It started off a bit strange, as I couldn’t really tell where the story was going. Or even if there was one. But as I continue through, love, coupled with loss, seem to be two of the main overarching themes in the story. My favorite part of the story thus far occurs in the very beginning. It’s when Nelson first tells the reader she fell in love with a color. But she goes on to say that she didn’t choose to fall in love with the color. It just happened, and there was really nothing to be done about it. I thought this set up the book extremely well. Nelson goes on to tell us of a breakup she experienced. Before she does this though, she talks about how great it was falling in love. She details her sex life and describes the great aspects of falling in love. But as she continues, she takes on more of a somber tone. She talks about the good and the bad that comes with falling in love and being in a relationship. This perfectly connects back with the beginning of the story. How love can be found anywhere and it often feels as though we don’t even have a say in the matter. Nelson connects these ubiquitous human feelings with the color blue. How it seems perfect and that there are tons of beautiful blue things in the world. But then she brings up back to reality by pointing out that blue can cause pain as well.

Color and Thought-- Becky

Section 40: “When I talk about color and hope, or color and despair, I am not talking about the red of a stoplight, a periwinkle line on the white felt oval of a pregnancy test, or a black sail strung from a ship’s mast. I am trying to talk about what blue means, or what it means to me, apart from meaning.” Blue isn’t only a color. It’s an emotion, a means of expression, and a representation of nature. Nelson explains this idea in Bluets. This specific section illustrates how Nelson draws a personal connection between her life and the color blue. She does not simply speak about the meaning of blue as told by the dictionary or encyclopedia; she speaks of the meaning of blue to her. Nelson is describing both her perspective on the color blue, as well as the ways in which others perceive blue. She does not limit her writing to only her thoughts and ideas; she expands and researches other’s thoughts and ideas about blue and uses these ideas to further elaborate on her own. She recognizes the minor hints and specks of blue in nature, in her life, in other’s lives. For Nelson, blue is the color she chooses because of her own personal connections with it. I believe that the specific color blue is not entirely significant, but it is how colors themselves relate so much to our lives in symbolic and literal ways. Colors play such a large role in everyone’s lives, and I believe Nelson is attempting to show her audience this. While reading, I thought about the colors that impact my life significantly. Nelson has elicited this wondering from within me that I don’t often think about. It has caused me to think about things that are so prevalent in my life, yet become such an unconscious part of my life. The overarching goal of this book is to provoke thought from the audience; it is to bring out the thinker, the abstract thoughts.