8/31/13

Challenge of Travel Blog Hop - Atlanta Edition

This is the second year that Erin of Tesori Trovati Jewelry and the Treasures Found blog is sponsoring her Challenge of Travel blog hop, this time with a unique twist: stay home! Explore the town you call home, share the adventure on your blog, and design something to celebrate the experience.

Although it was one of the first places we visited when we moved to Atlanta 15 years ago, it had been several years since I'd made my way to the High Museum of Art on Peachtree Street in the heart of the city.


The High has fabulous permanent collections of Folk and Modern Art, but this summer there were two traveling exhibits I especially wanted to see - art from the Dutch Golden Age featuring Johannes Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring (the first time it's being displayed in the American Southeast); and the first-ever museum exhibition of Georgia jewelry artist, Gogo Ferguson. She designed the wedding rings for JFK Jr and Caroline Bessette and draws inspiration for her very elegant nature-inspired pieces from barnacles, seaweed, alligator toes and rattlesnake ribs. For a real treat, click on the photo below to see her creations.


Armadillo Scapula Necklace by Georgia artist, Gogo Ferguson

The High Museum is just a short walk from the home of Gone with the Wind author, Margaret Mitchell.


While Atlanta was becoming home to us, I took a year off from work and used that time to immerse myself in books by Southern writers. Mitchell and Harper Lee were already favorites - I had practically committed their books to memory, but that year, I read Flannery O'Connor, Charles Frazier, Anne Rivers Siddons, and everything I could find by Reynolds Price. Jimmy Carter's and Martin Luther King's writings made their way onto my bookshelf as well.

Erin's number one rule for us was to have fun with this challenge, and I certainly did that! Inspired to create something that celebrates both art and literature, I made a sheet of resin paper capturing passages from those great Southern writers. After tearing into small squares, I burned the edges, rubbing oil pastels into them while still warm.


Once my papers were stacked onto handmade eye pins and bookended with glossy rondelles, I combined them with colorful hand-painted, geometric Klimt-style blocks purchased from Artbeads several years ago. They hang from hand formed, rectangular earwires.



Since the materials are paper and mother of pearl, these earrings are super light, with a swing that Southern belle, Scarlett, would adore!


Thanks for stopping by. Now, please click over to Erin's blog and follow the links to see how all the other participants explored and celebrated the places they call home!

27 comments:

  1. I absolutely love what your home inspired you, so imaginativea cn colorful!!

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  2. These earrings are fantastic! A beautiful and artistic way to combine art and literature.

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  3. Look at you, gettin' fancy woth the resin paper! Thoses earrings are fantastic!

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  4. these are the coolest earrings i have ever seen! very creative and colorful and fun.

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  5. wow these are so creative! and gorgeous to boot! what a great interpretation of Erin's challenge

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  6. Love the paper stack beads with hidden messages!

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  7. What a neat technique! The earrings are so bright and cheerful, so lovely!

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  8. Those earrings are fantastic! Wonderfully inspiring!

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  9. Love them, Karin, an unbelievably clever interpretation of your Atlanta!

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  10. Your earrings are fabulous and what a fantastic way to celebrate your city and its authors. My husband is an author and I a reader so tend to love anything (almost) that celebrates the written word.

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  11. Oh My Gosh Karin those earrings are GORGEOUS! I love how you created the pages and stacked them all together - ingenious!

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  12. Gorgeous earrings! Truly, an inspired piece of jewellery :)

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  13. A fabulous city. I've been there onece but there's so much to see.

    Your earrings are fantastic!!!!!

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  14. Wonderful earrings. Wonderful description of your place and your grounding yourself there!

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  15. Really fabulous and fun. Beautiful.

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  16. That is such a fabulous idea and I love how your earrings came out! They look like they would be such fun to wear!

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  17. Very kool and lots of fun - love your story!

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  18. What a fun pair of earrings and what a cool way to show your love of literature and art.

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  19. Your earrings are really unique! Love the story of the inspiration behind them.

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  20. LOVELOVELOVE this! I cant seem to say anything here that really expresses my adoration of these earrings, your story and your technique. LOVE will have to do.

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  21. Such colourful, funky earrings with serious literature inside. A great design. Andrea

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  22. Such fun and creative earrings! They really feel modern and artistic. Love the hidden texts in them: they're the most important components without which there'd be no earrings, but you don't actually know what it really is just by looking at them. They have a secret.

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  23. By far, the coolest medium! I've never seen anything like it and truly how perfect to represent your home. Love your creativity and for taking my memory back to Gone With the Wind!... Frankly my dear.... ;)

    Have a fabulous weekend!
    {Hugs!}

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  24. What a wonderful pair of earrings! I love celebrating words and art and these are the perfect melding of these mixed media materials. The trick of resining the paper, burning the edges and using the pastels is one that I learned so many years ago from Susan Lenart Kazmer. I haven't done that is many years. Thank you for the reminder and the inspiration! Sorry that it took me so long to get around to all the hometowns. With this fundraiser I am doing it has taken all my free time this past week. I want to savor every one! Thank you for joining me on the journey! Enjoy the day. Erin

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  25. I LOVE these earrings!!!! That they're in honor of southern writers (my favorite books!) makes them all that more special. No one would even need to know that though, as they're so mod!

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  26. I LOVE these earrings!!!! That they're in honor of southern writers (my favorite books!) makes them all that more special. No one would even need to know that though, as they're so mod!

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