Style Imitating Art | “Pumpkin” by Yayoi Kusama

This is one of my favorite ever Style Imitating Art challenges. I love the art and I am thrilled with the outfit that it inspired.

About Style Imitating Art

Style Imitating Art is hosted by Salazar of 14 Shades of Grey, Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge, and Marsha of Marsha in the Middle. Style Imitating Art challenges us to draw style inspiration from pieces of art. Every other Monday, one of the hosts, acting as presenter, selects an inspiration image that they will each post on their blogs. The following Monday, each host shares her art inspired outfit. Participants are invited to submit their art inspired outfits to the presenter by 10:00 p.m. EST on the Tuesday following the hosts’ art inspired outfit posts. The following day, Wednesday, the presenter will share all of the submissions on her blog.

You don’t have to be a blogger to join either! In fact, you don’t even have to join but you can still use the art to inspire an outfit just for the sake of trying something different. If you want to share your inspired outfit, we invite you do so on Instagram or any other social media platform that you prefer. Just be sure to tag Salazar, Shelbee, or Marsha or use #TeamLOTSStyle and #StyleImitatingArt so the hosts know you have joined. Go have some fun in your closets and join the SIA challenge next week!

This Week’s Presenter

Salazar recently visited Japan and wanted to choose a Japanese artist for this round of SIA. Since we have featured several Classical Japanese artists already, she decided to choose a contemporary artist instead for this challenge.

The Artwork

“Pumpkin” (1994) by Yayoi Kusama

About the Artist: Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama was born in Matsumoto, Nagano, Japan, on March 22, 1929, to a merchant family who owned a plant nursery and seed farm. As a young child, Kusama began drawing pictures of pumpkins as well as drawings inspired by her hallucinations. Her mother was physically abusive and did not support Yayoi’s creative talents, often taking her artwork away in an attempt to discourage her. Her father was a chronic womanizer and Yayoi’s mother would often send her to spy on her father’s extramarital affairs. As a result, the very young Yayoi was forced to watch her father engaging in sexual acts which instilled in her a lifelong contempt for sexuality, in particular men’s sexuality. These childhood traumas along with the hallucinations that began around the age of 10 have defined Yayoi Kusama’s artistic style.

During World War II, thirteen year old Yayoi was sent to work in a military factory where she made parachutes for the Japanese army. Her childhood was dramatically influenced by the war which impacted her beliefs in personal and creative freedoms. In 1948, Kusama attended the Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts to study Nihonga painting, but she quickly became frustrated with this distinctly Japanese style of painting as her interest moved to American and European avant-garde art.

By the early 1950s, Kusama was staging solo exhibitions featuring her water color, gouache, and oil paintings on paper. During this time, she also began covering all sorts of surfaces from walls, floors, and ceilings to household objects with the polka dots that would become her trademark style. The vast fields of polka dots which Kusama has coined “infinity nets” came directly from her colorful hallucinations. Her earliest polka dot work dates back to 1939 when she was just 10 years old. It depicts the image of a Japanese woman wearing a kimono, likely her mother, that is completely covered in dots.

By the age of 27, after living in Tokyo and France, Kusama had become disenchanted with Japanese society, calling it “too small, too servile, too feudalistic, and too scornful of women”. So in 1957, after destroying many of her earliest artworks, Yayoi moved to the United States, settling first in Seattle, Washington, for a year before moving to New York City. In New York City in the 1960’s, Yayoi was fully immersed in the community of creatives which included artists such as Georgia O’Keeffe and Andy Warhol.

During her time in New York, Kusama had a brief relationship with fellow artist Donald Judd followed by a long platonic relationship with surrealist artist Joseph Cornell. She was 26 years younger than Joseph but they remained the dearest of friends who talked every day until his death in 1972.

A year after Cornell’s death, Kusama would return to Japan where she was greeted with little sympathy and harsh criticisms for being a “scandal queen”. This unsavory welcoming back to her homeland triggered a severe episode of depression which led to Kusama’s third suicide attempt (the first two attempts happened in NYC). In 1977, she found a doctor who was utilizing art therapy in a hospital setting for patients with mental illness and she checked herself in. She has been living, by choice, in that same hospital ever since. Her studio is a short distance away in Tokyo and she continues to create art in her 96th year of life.

Yayoi Kusama is an extraordinarily fascinating human who has been acknowledged as one of the most important living Japanese artists, the world’s top selling female artist, and the world’s most successful living artist. Although she is a very private person, there is still quite a bit of biographical information to be found if you are interested in learning more.

About the Art: “Pumpkin”

Because Yayoi Kusama is best known for her polka dots and her pumpkins, Salazar chose one of her most famous pieces, a giant yellow pumpkin sculpture with black dots, as our outfit inspiration. There are several of these pumpkin sculptures around the world, but this particular one, located at the Benesse Art Site on Naoshima Island in Japan, is one of the largest in the whole pumpkin series.

This “Pumpkin” was first displayed in 1994 at the Naoshima exhibition, Open Air ’94 “Out of Bounds” Contemporary Art in the Seascape. The photo above featuring Kusama standing next to her pumpkin sculpture was taken at the exhibition’s open ceremony in September 1994.

This particular pumpkin sculpture was created with the location in mind. Sitting on an old weathered pier, Kusama chose the vibrant yellow color so that it would stand out against the background landscape of blue ocean and mountains. When this sculpture was designed, it was one of the largest of Kusama’s pumpkins and the first to be on permanent display outdoors.

In 2024, Kusama created another “Pumpkin”, her tallest bronze pumpkin sculpture to date, which measures 6 meters (19.7 feet) tall by 5.5 meters (18 feet) in diameter. It is installed near the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens.

Helpful Links

• Wikipedia: Yayoi Kusama
• Serpentine Galleries: Yayoi Kusama: Pumpkin
• My Art Broker: 10 Facts About Yayoi Kusama’s Pumpkins

About My Outfit

The outfit that was inspired by this artwork is one of my favorite outfits ever. I do love polka dots, pumpkins, and vibrant colors, so I really did not have a hard time pulling this cheerful look together.

I started with a very old black slip dress featuring a bold white polka dot pattern. I added a black cropped tee under my dress for modesty purposes (this dress shows an uncomfortable amount of cleavage otherwise). I layered on a bright yellow kimono robe and a white scarf with black polka dots (because the more dots, the better).

I was excited for yet another opportunity to wear my polka dot Tieks and they were the perfect footwear for this outfit and for the artwork. All of my jewelry is in the shape of circles or round beads to further mimic the polka dots and I added my pumpkin necklace because it made sense. Even my toes match the colorful vibe of this outfit.

Finally, I topped off my colorful outfit with this fabulous new hat I picked up at a craft market in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a few weeks ago. It was made by a lovely woman named June. She and her daughter own Bdazzle Jewelry where they sell unique handmade accessories and clothing. I am actually wearing the hat inside out because I wanted the pretty floral print to show when I flipped the brim upwards. By the way, I wore my new Tieks with this outfit I previously shared for a whole day of shopping with my sister. I am very happy to report that they were really comfortable and offered me enough support for lots and lots of walking.

Here a few photos from the craft market so you can see the hat a little better. That’s June, the maker of my lovely hat, in the middle photo. I am wearing an amazing jacket that she also created. I would have bought the jacket, too, but I was already over my budget with the hat!

I know the hat does’t have anything to do with the inspiration artwork, but I do think that Yayoi Kusama would approve of it!

I first wore this polka dot outfit on Mother’s Day with a long sleeve tee shirt and my white cowgirl boots. I had every intention of taking photographs in the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge but the sun was too bright, the shadows were too harsh, and the wind was too cold and blowy. But here’s a few…

And one last bad photo…when my husband encouraged me to pose to my right side instead of my left. I literally did not know what to do with my body.

If you enjoyed my outfit inspired by Yayoi Kusama’s “Pumpkin”, be sure to check out Salazar‘s and Marsha‘s interpretations as well. If you would like to participate in this challenge and have your photo included in Salazar’s round up post on Wednesday, May 21, 2025, be sure to email your photos to her at 14shadesofgreyblog@gmail.com by Tuesday, May 20, 2025, by 10:00 p.m. EST. I am excited to see what you all wear.

Happy styling! 

Keeping it on the edge, 

Shelbee

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