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.]