I’ve decided to start taking part in the Style Imitating Art challenge again (the last time I took part was in 2022!), and I’m honestly so excited about it. I used to join in every other week with a lovely group of bloggers, but when we moved into the rental house it wasn’t so easy to take photos. Now that we’re finally in our new home (and I have proper spots to shoot again!), I thought it was the perfect time to jump back in. This month, Shelbee from Shelbee on the Edge chose the theme, and it’s based on the painting Earth and Sky by Paul Meltsner. You can read about why she chose this painting here.
Paul Meltsner was a German-born American artist who was active in the 1930s and 40s. He was part of the WPA art programme, which commissioned artists during the Great Depression, so a lot of his work focused on ordinary people doing everyday jobs. Earth and Sky is very much in that spirit – a celebration of rural life, with farmers working the fields under an endless open sky. It has that almost romantic quality of looking back at simpler, slower times, even though in reality farm life was anything but easy!
For my look, I decided to take the challenge quite literally. I layered a blue shirt over a plain white t-shirt, grabbed some yellow trousers (from Vinted), added a muted toned scarf and handbag, my cream Ecco sneakers and topped it off with a brownish hat – a bit like the farmer in the painting. I wanted to go all-out “harvest ready”, but I don’t actually have much in the way of earthy tones in my wardrobe. Still, I think it captures the essence of the piece!
Now, would I hang Earth and Sky in my house? Probably not… but there’s definitely something captivating about it. The more I looked at it, the more it reminded me of a painting that we actually do have hanging in our home (so maybe I would after all, lol!).
The painting we have is very different in style, but it also features a harvest scene. It came from Michael’s late father – he remembers them buying it when he was young and living in the UK. It’s quite a statement piece, and one of those things that makes you pause for a moment when you walk past it. We’ve tried to make out the artist’s name, but the signature is just a little too tricky to decipher. Here it is so you can see what I mean:
So maybe I do have a soft spot for these kinds of rural harvest scenes after all! There’s something timeless and grounding about them – fields stretching into the distance, people working the land, horses pulling the load… it feels like a little slice of history captured in oil and canvas.
Have you ever had a piece of art sneak up on you like that – something you didn’t think you’d connect with at first, but then it quietly won you over?
Check out the hosts of Style Imitating Art:
Shelbee on the Edge
Marsha in the Middle
14 Shades of Grey
Side note: When I took part in the SIA challenge before, I wa susing my Grey Brunette blog and when I migrated all those posts back to this blog, some of the images went a bit awry, so it’s possible when I link back to posts around that date, some of the images are sadly missing…bummer, I know!
