Every once in a while, I take a look at AM Radio’s profile picks and check out the installations. While The Quiet and The Far Away stay as permanent exhibits of his amazing skills in environment building, other temporary installations come and go. I stopped by Surface – a wide open prairie after the hay has been cut and baled and the field is in the process of being burned. The prairie installations he creates always give me a sense of home even though I was a stump-jumper, one of those who grew up in the beautiful Northwoods that border the Red River Valley.

There could be no greater emotional contrast than the close, nestling comfort of the forest and the chill, indifference of the prairie vastness. Every time we went to the doctor, the vet or to a larger grocery, we left our forest cocoon for the immensity of the plains. Perhaps because our house was right in the middle of the forest, not in town, that contrast always made me feel very much like a tiny insignificant organism in a near infinite ocean of wheat. Going to visit my sister, there is a small embankment that is the eastern shoreline of the prehistoric Lake Aggassiz that is the true sea of grass that makes up the Red River Valley. The enormity of that vast flatness will always take my breath away. I think if I had actually lived in the Valley I would have succumbed to prairie madness because I prefer the comforting close coziness of the forest, but many in my family live in the Valley and love its never-ending horizon.

Of course, running around in a sea of grass requires the right kind of clothing. First you need good solid denim jeans. Only the close, tight weave of the denim is going to protect you from the poky, itchy dried hay. I have never understood the romanticized trysts in the hay barns in books and movies. Have the writers ever sat on a bed of hay? I have helped bale truckloads of hay in my youth and mucked stables and barns and spread new hay for the cows and horses. I can tell you from personal experience, hay is itchy and pokes you everywhere! And believe me, hay can poke through a blanket as I have learned on dozens of hay rides in the fall when my best friend’s dad would pile up the hay rick and take us for a long ride through the night while we terrified each other with ghost stories.  You need denim!  The Garage Jeans from League are great and they come with an old-fashioned farm hankie for wiping away the hay dust. Usually I would wear boots in the field, but these sneakers from Hoorenbeek are a great choice because they come already dirty.

If you’re going to be baling hay, you will want to wear one shirt tucked in and one shirt loose. That way you can flap the loose shirt, take it off every hour or so and shake out the bits of dust and hay. A nice loose weave as in this sweatshirt from eha is a good choice, especially when paired with a tight tank like this one from Pink Outfitters. Of course, if I were really baling hay, I would have on big leather work gloves that are ugly as hell, but this is only virtual hay.

Since it’s virtual hay, I indulged in a necklace from Balderdash and earrings from Dark Mouse. The hair is a new release from eha at their brand new main store that opened Friday. It’s the perfect messy updo that you get when you’re putting your hair up at 5 AM. The skin is my new favorite that is still in production. The eye makeups have not been made yet and this skin is the fourth version of this particular tone that I was blessed with in one day.  Incomplete or not, I am in love with it and can’t wait to share the new release with you all when it finally comes out.

***STYLE NOTES******
Promotional Copies are denoted by a Bold R

• Poses: EverGlow
• Eyes: Poetic Colors Night Forest Medium
• Lashes: Lelutka Diva Prim Lashes
• Hair: eha – Rin Light Red tinted R
• Top: Eha Where is the Line Pullover R
• Top: Pink Outfitters Billie Lace Top -gray
• Pants: League Garage Jeans
• Shoes: hoorenbeeck All Stars – Dirty White
• Necklace: Balderdash Smoked Topaz
• Earrings: Dark Mouse Wood Earrings R