Friday, February 12, 2010

Rooftop View


Looking out the 6th floor window at St. Joseph's Hospital yesterday, I was awed by a peculiar attention to detail. Someone had been thoughtful enough to arrange different colored rocks on the rooftop in a series of waves, lifting an otherwise industrial scene to the status of art. Beyond the rooftop, towers of Phoenix obscure the distant geological magic of Papago Buttes, outcrops of wind-pocked red sandstone rising from an otherwise flat landscape.

Even more curious is the window sized gallery photo of the Grand Canyon on the wall opposite the rooftop view. Below, I've substituted with a photo of my own taken a few years ago when actually looking across the landscape of Grand Canyon above Tanner Wash.

Which way would you rather look? Which is greater art, rooftop or Canyon? (By this I mean the Grand Canyon itself, not the photo.) And where did those lovely dark river polished rocks come from, I wonder?

2 comments:

Allan Stellar said...

This is a new trend in hospitals. Someone figured out that patients that have a view of nature, heal better and faster than those who do not have such a view. Beauty heals, hence the Grand Canyon photo.

Katherine Darrow said...

Unfortunately, very few of the patients on the 6th floor of St. Joe's even get out of bed. There is no art in the rooms, except for what families bring. But the staff certainly benefits!