26. A walk with Henry Rousseau

SIA, Style Imitating Art has a lush painting this week as inspiration, Woman Walking in Exotic Forest by Henry Rousseau.

I wanted to bring in the lushness and exotic mood in with color. And as I don't wear such greens I took something else very exotic.

This background fabric has followed me for 20 years. It is hand embroidered on coarse blue linen. I bought it because it was calling my name very, very loudly. I could not afford it, nor had I any idea what to use it for. A couple of years it lived in my cupboard. I would fondle it from time to time, feel the fabric, delight in the rich embroidery and vivid color.

Then we found a wooden day bed on the sidewalk in Brooklyn, bought a foam mattress and used the fabric for cover. It wore all threadbare in the places where we would sit. It was our tv-couch, and we watched a lot of movies, a lot.

Then we moved again, and now this fabric serves as curtain between the hallway and living room. Threadbare spots mean there is some daylight filtering into the dark hallway. I still love that fabric, and I know I will use it in the next place, too, as it has become part of me.

But this post was about clothing...

I am wearing a printed linen skirt, a simple blue blouse with tie, a polished slab of apatite on a suede cord (by some Brooklyn-based artist) and pomegranate red shoes. I wanted to look exotic, and this skirt with it's exiting complementary contrast (see entry 25) is maybe the most adventurous thing I own, colorwise.

details:
skirt: H&M (2009)
blouse: Promod (2011)
pendant: bought in Brooklyn (2005)
bracelet: made-by-me (2011)
shoes: Vagabond (2008)

The bracelet is made by moi. I took an inner cardboard roll of an adhesive tape, the large kind, and knitted a tube around it. I have several bracelets in fun colors and different widths (scotch tape, packing tape, duck tape...)

linking with:
Style Imitating Art