Combining Old Favorites in Shades of Blue-Green for SIA: Count on Me + DIY Bead Soup Earrings

Shelbee at Shelbee on the Edge is the curator for this round of Style Imitating Art (SIA), and she picked the contemporary sculpture "Count on Me" by Cave Creek artist Ryan McCallister. Shelbee says that it portrays a "winged warrior goddess...inspired by the Valkyries and angels." The sculpture definitely looks like an angel to me, but warrior goddess works too!

Source: shelbeeontheedge.com

I immediately identified the main two aspects of this artwork that I wanted to represent in my outfit. Surprisingly, I didn't gravitate toward a wings motif despite my love of birds. I guess these were so clearly angel wings to me that I didn't go in that direction.

Instead, I picked up on (1) the gorgeous blue-green colors in the wings and (2) the scalloped feather shapes of the wings. So I turned to my peacock blue drapey cardigan (that's been in my closet since 2014) for its rich blue-green color and for the cascading waterfall detailing down the front that resonated with the fluidity of wings. I supplemented the cardigan with a mixed floral-and-paisley print scarf (from 2013) that has a variety of blue and green tones and a black-outlined print that is reminiscent of the stained glass wing design.

With those two pieces in place, it was easy to create a simple casual early fall weekend outfit by adding a white tank and dark denim skinny jeans. I know that this silhouette does not align to the current trend for high-waisted, high-volume jeans combined with fitted, cropped tops, so it's not going to garner any acclaim for its modern styling. But who knows, by the time I publish this post, skinny jeans could be in style again (or maybe they're already back?). Am I behind the trends...or in front of them? Or maybe it's just an outfit that is orthogonal to fashion. I'm not going to worry about it. A waterfall cardigan + skinny jeans made me happy for this SIA outfit, so I just decided to rock on with my bad self.

OOTD 10/7/23

Does a warrior goddess worry when she's about to go out and do battle that her wings are a dated silhouette? I think not!

What could better complete this "revisiting 2016" outfit than a pair of bright teal ballet flats (from Payless in 2015). Although since balletcore is a thing in 2023, ballet flats are momentarily having a fashion moment.

My daily bracelet stack was created around this paper bead bracelet (page to bead post here) in shades of blue and green with a cute silver fish charm. I added some DIY bracelets in yellow-green jade rectangles, white glass rounds, aqua magnesite ovals, and silver-tone metal rounds to complete the stack.

My earrings are an extremely fast-and-easy pair of DIY bead soup earrings I made to coordinate with the paper bead bracelet. Because the bracelet had ocean colors and a fish charm, I continued that in the earrings. I simply added long dangly fish charms to a pair of round aqua beads and hung them from fish hook ear wires. (You could use a different type of earring finding, but with fish hooks available, naturally you'd choose those to work the theme.) I love that the scalloped edges of the fish scales are reminiscent of the curving metalwork on the sculpture.

For a quick artwork element vs. outfit element recap:

-Range of blue-green colors (wings & sky): peacock cardigan, scarf, ballet flats, earrings, bracelets

-Silvery metal (sword & staff): silver spacer bracelet, earrings, charms

-Green (cactus): scarf, jade bracelet

-White (horizon): tank

-Stones (body): aqua magnesite bracelet, green jade bracelet

-Swirl shapes (metal on body): scarf paisley print, earring fish charms

-Wings (wings on figure): drapey waterfall cardigan

-White rounds (orb on staff): white glass round bead bracelet

Not bad!

Now for the part we've all been waiting for: our Rabbit Imitating Art selection! There was no obvious rabbit breed, color, or fur pattern that jumped to mind when looking at the warrior goddess sculpture, but one thing I noticed about the photo Shelbee shared was the quality of the light in the background behind the figure. Although the sculpture is slightly shadowed, the background is softly glowing. So when I saw this gorgeous grey Polish rabbit with light softly glowing against her fur, it just felt right.

The bunny introduces another dimension to this artwork scene featuring the stone and metal winged warrior next to a tall prickly cactus...a wonderful small plush roundness that is otherwise entirely missing. As the warrior stands sentinel with her staff and sword at hand, looking confidently out on the world, she is very impressive! But notice that the small rabbit at her feet is likewise alert, facing in a direction the warrior isn't watching and keeping her ear open to all sounds in the area. Lacking armor, wings, and weapons of power, the bunny nevertheless stands her ground. Few of us are equipped to be full-on warrior goddesses, but perhaps we can be as brave as this little rabbit.

Count on Me "improved" with rabbit

Thanks for joining me today for this Style Imitating Art + Rabbit Imitating (and Improving) Art post!

To see other outfit interpretations of this artwork, check out the review on Shelbee on the Edge on Wednesday.

Do you still own skinny jeans or have you switched entirely to wider leg options (or not wear jeans at all, as hard as that would be for me to relate to!)?

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