INDIAN SUMMER

Growing up near the beach, I learned to really appreciate the off-season. There's nothing more relaxing than spending a day in the warm sand once the tourists head home and the temperatures drop. It's when the beach is completely desolate that you can really appreciate its artistry.

Richard Diebenkorn is an artist I've always admired for his distinctive portrayals of the coast.

A Bay Area painter, his seaside compositions verge closer and closer to abstraction, yet still completely capture the feeling of the landscape.

Somehow Diebenkorn arranges a few slivers of color around an opaque ground to achieve a perfect sense of a deserted coastal vista.

I took these pictures on the equally deserted boardwalk, but my boots were hastily removed once my feet hit the sand.

I'm wearing a vintage mohair sweater, Fashion Against AIDS necklace from H&M, Grey Antics jeans (last seen here), suede Halston boots, and Pucci sunglasses.

[Diebenkorn images from museumca.org, theartwolf.com, and thepapercrane.com, respectively.]

OP ART

I love polka dots. I submit that it is nearly impossible to be unhappy when one is wearing spots. Alas, I have very few spotted garments in my wardrobe, which is a void I've been working on filling. [Click images to enlarge.]

I found this vintage silk blouse at Goodwill recently and have been dying to wear it ever since. It's quite a festive color scheme for October, don't you think?

When I think of polka dots in art, it's impossible to ignore Op Art, like this 1964 Bridget Riley painting.

Bridget Riley was a proponent of the Op Art movement of the 1960s. At one of Riley's solo gallery shows, her paintings were accused of inducing seasickness!

Riley with some of her paintings.

Op Art became mainstream with the 1965 exhibition The Responsive Eye at the MoMA.

The use of optical illusions in fine art was hastily translated to advertising, as evidenced by this 1965 Pond's advertisement. I love it: "Spots are in, but not on your skin."

I'm wearing a vintage silk blouse with an Erin Fetherston skirt, vintage crinoline, Rampage lace socks, and Halston suede boots.

[Op Art images from the Boston Globe.]