Thursday, May 7, 2015

Art Imitating Style

Introducing "Art Imitating Style" and Photos From My Apartment--Wednesday, 5/6/15

There is a monthly style challenge called Style Imitating Art in which someone (it rotates among 3 curators) picks a piece of art (usually but not always a painting) for people to use as the inspiration for their outfit.  I decided that in the spirit of the Reverse Inspirations that have been going on around my temporally-confused apartment, I would start a new "Art Imitating Style" feature.  Arguably, you've already seen the first one of these when I showed you how the snake in my bathroom and I were wearing a similar blue pattern.

But rather than look into the wide world of art to find Reverse Inspirations for my outfit, I'm going to focus my attentions (for now) right here in my apartment.  In early March, I took a bunch of photos of our apartment--a sort of virtual tour--but I never posted them.  And let's face it, nobody wants to see a gazillion apartment photos all at once!  So I'm going to post one apartment photo each day--if I have a piece of art that echoes my outfit in some way, great; if not, you'll get some other photo.

I'm still enjoying seeing how other bloggers have developed their own versions of my outfits, too, so those Reverse Inspirations will continue as well for the days it is relevant.  You will have to wait until the fall for me to introduce my series on how my outfits are resonating back through time to influence major world events like the building of the pyramids, the start of World War I, and the extinction of the dinosaurs--these events never really made sense until you realized my sartorial impact.  Stay tuned.

OK, let's get started!

Alice confessed that she has about 200 skirts (that was a year ago; it could be more by now), and I think her cardigan/blazer collection is astoundingly broad as well, so I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that she is such a popular player in my Reverse Inspiration game.  She is also a master pattern and color mixer.  Here she demonstrates how well teal, orange, and floral print go together.  (And polka dots; she lives and dies by the polka dot.)

From happinessatmidlife.com

Orange is not a color I gravitate toward usually, but I couldn't resist trying this orange/coral blazer from JNY for $24.75.  It's not a wear-every-week sort of basic blazer but I liked the interesting cut and decided what the hell.  Because I wasn't sure what to wear it with, I did the old trick of dragging the jacket across all the shirts in my closet until I found one that worked.  (Happily, the fabrication of the blouse was a good match to the "somewhat dressy blazer made from slippery fabric" as well.)  It was then as easy as finding a skirt in another color from the blouse.



*Coral blazer (JNY)+
Green/orange/purple floral blouse (Lands End)+
Dark teal pencil skirt (JCP)
Gold pointy toed flats (Nordstrom)+
Gold shelled pea necklace (Target)+

Although it was hard to say goodbye to tights and boots season, spring and summer do bring the consolation that I can wear my gold flats.



Do you know who else likes the combination of orange/coral and teal?  This festive rabbit who hangs out in my living room.



In other news....have you ever heard the expression "the first robin of spring"?  I mean, WTF, right?  Who ever heard of seeing robins in spring.  Robins are winter birds.  But living in the frozen north has taught me that a lot of my associations of birds and seasons (e.g., ducks and winter) are totally wrong up here.  And indeed, there are robins EVERYWHERE in Coldville right now.  Driving home from work, within one block my car chased two of them out of the middle of the road.  (And because they're robins, they don't fly--they just kind of hop/run out of the way.)

Robert and I really need to start a "yard" list.  I say "yard" because I count the river as part of our yard--anything visible from our windows/balcony, that counts for me.  It's going to be an odd list.  This is what I can recall right now:

House sparrow
House finch
Northern cardinal
Mourning dove
American robin
Bald eagle
Turkey vulture
Pied-billed grebe
Some kind of merganser
Mallard
....?  Robert will have to help in reconstructing this list.

I haven't seen any rabbits from my apartment yet, but if I were a bunny, I'd stay way the fuck away from all these dogs, too.

Man, if I were better at identifying dog species, I could develop an impressive list.  We're already starting to recognize individual dogs, too.

3 comments:

rvman said...

Common Grackle, Canada Goose. Starling, I think, though I can't remember a specific incident of seeing them from the apartment. Rock Pigeon.

mom said...

I like the color combination of your outfit. Very stylish, too.

Tam said...

I'm looking forward to seeing the art!

It sometimes annoys me that I was taught as a child that "birds fly south for the winter." I was in the south, so this really wasn't true for us - our birds did not fly south; if anything, they flew north for the summer.

And I maintain that the latter view is actually, objectively correct. Birds could (or in some cases perhaps could have, before they unadapted to it, if some did) live in warmer climes year round. Traveling north for the summer is a way of making use of an opportunity to forage where other birds don't live because it is too cold there during parts of the year. The migrating bird's natural habitat is in warmer climates that don't require migration (says I).