Dresden Blue

I know, everyone asks, and it's become such a boring question! "What's your favorite color?"

Once upon I time I wanted to scream when someone asked me that. I still do, pretty much most of the time. But I started thinking earnestly about what my favorite color is when I was looking at a little mail table.

As mail tables go, it wasn't anything terribly special. It had enough surface and shelves to keep mail neat, which is what I wanted. But the color was what sold me--Dresden Blue. 

I really don't know why I love this color, but seeing it, I absolutely had to have that mail table. Which made me think, is that my favorite color? You already know, don't you?

I spent the better part of an afternoon trying to figure it out. The color makes me feel like a monologue I love from the Ugo Betti play The Queen and the Rebels. The heroine is talking about the sea and a color "that makes the heart leap" - though I think she means turquoise. I do love turquoise, but there is somersetting about this blue that makes me feel alive in a different way.

It makes me feel I am looking at something so artful, clever and seductive it would be able to invite me in and allow me to fly. If there was a room full of this color, I don't know if I'd like it. But if there was one wall, or woodwork, or a wall with a window, I know I would.

As for the history of this color, I'm completely ignorant of it. If it originated in Dresden, I do not know. What does the city's tragic history mean for the color? Again, don't know. I'll try and do some research so I can share that with you!

I also found an interesting history of the color blue, but still not enough about the Dresden shade or its origins. My other favorite color is copper, but that doesn't come near what I like about Dresden Blue.

And, btw, I don't think anyone who knows me well would consider this blue my "signature" color. I wear a lot more green and copper and black than blue - and I've never, ever talked about colors like this before. I only just figured it out looking at the mail table.

Which my husband didn't like, or at least didn't like the color, so we ended up with a wood-sheen type thing. Still, that blue is waiting for me somewhere. I just know it.

I don't think Ruby's artist mother Nell (in The Beat Street Series) would like this color, though I've never sat and thought about her palette very much. It's not a very Beat/1950s/Greenwich Village/Bohemian shade, and Nell tends to favor black and red. 

I also know it's an awful cliche to talk about your favorite color. But it created so much emotion for me I had to try and figure it out. I think it's about beauty, and stopping time, and needing to transcend these trying times. 

Yes, all of the above, and this color has such an unending well of beauty, at least for me when I look at it. And right now, right this minute, I mean--that's good enough for me.

Photos: uncredited but found on commercial sites