“Behind Blue Eyes,” The Thing (character created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, owned by Marvel Comics) is a mixed media mosaic, consisting of stained glass for the background, ceramic tile for the shirt, glass beads for the eyes, and sculpey (that has been carved, baked, and painted) for the body.  The piece measures 23.5x31 in. framed. All pieces have been cut and placed entirely by hand on pretreated plywood.  The piece was grouted with black sanded grout.

Born on Yancy Street in New York city’s lower east side to a Jewish family, Benjamin Jacob Grimm, had an early life of poverty and hardship, shaping him into a tough, streetwise scrapper.  Excelling in football as a high school student, Ben received a full scholarship to Empire State University where he first met his eventual lifelong friend in a teenaged genius named Reed Richards. Despite their being from radically different backgrounds, science student Richards described to Grimm his dream of building a space rocket to explore the regions of space around Mars; Grimm jokingly agreed to fly that rocket when the day came.

Ben did pilot that rocket ship, but during the flight , he and the rest of the crew were bombarded by cosmic rays.  Grimm's skin was transformed into a thick, lumpy orange hide, which gradually evolved into large rocky exterior. The only thing unchanged are his baby blue eyes.  Ben, in a moment of self-pity, adopts the moniker of the Thing.

Despite his tragic appearance. Despite being labeled a monster. Despite the inability to take human form, Ben remains caring, compassionate and empathetic.  This demeanor has earned him the nickname of the “ever lovin’ blue eyed thing.”

“No one knows what it's like to be the bad man, to be the sad man, Behind blue eyes.”