Creative Rhythm

New necklace made this week.

Comprised of sterling silver, pearls, copper & enamel.

Feels so good to find the rhythm in the studio again!

Woke up today refreshed and cleansed by the creative gift. Like reconnecting with my soul.

Freshly Pressed

Branching out

 

Sculpture Garden in front of the Hirsshorn

This amazing tree was created by  Roxy Paine,

an artist who creates ambitiously large, sculptural,

stainless steel dendroids. Or branching systems.

I first discovered him, after driving on a dusty back road here in the hills of NY.

Where, in various states of assembly,

lay a multitude of metal limbs. Twisted and organic seeming. 

An outdoor work or staging space of his.

Completely inspiring.

Then found him again while biking through D.C.

This beautiful blue sky overhead. 

In the Sculpture Garden of the National Gallery.

Home again

Back home again.

7 weeks of a beautiful, inspiring road trip.

Our destination was the ocean and our direction was south.

And other than knowing we'd keep to the southeast, United States

we had no plan.

I am pretty sure I have some gypsy ancestry in my bloodline. 

(It would explain a lot.)

Setting out on a trip with this mindset, allows room for all the backroads, the small towns and the unexpected adventures.

My spirit longs for this kind of freedom most years, when the blanket of winter

wraps itself in tightly around New York State. And the intensity of my craft show season is fading.

My desire for respite & changing scenery is strong.

We drove due south, reaching the sandy white shores of Florida's Gulf Coast panhandle.
Truly, I had no idea of how stunning it would be.
Known as the "Forgotten Coast," because it is often overlooked as a
tourist destination, we thankfully found that translates into open swatches of seashore, undeveloped salt marsh estuaries and small quaint towns.

I think its an advantage to be forgotten is this way.

Once we reached the ocean, our trip took us first westward along the coast, camping throughout
the Gulf Islands National Seashore,
a string of 7 islands & barrier peninsulas that hug the coast of Florida and Mississippi.

From there we continued on towards New Orleans.....

  It's hard to summarize a city such as this one. It's unlike any other in the United States, pulling itself up from the bootstraps of Katrina. New Orleans is steeped in a rich history of music, an ornate French Creole style of decaying architecture and it's oozing with color & life.
It felt raw and it felt real.

And it felt very creatively alive.

After Louisiana we basically high tailed it, in one full swoop, back towards the Atlantic seaboard.
Our one detour, however,  before reaching the coast was to take in a little of the legendary
Okefenokee Swamp  in southern Georgia.

How could we pass it up with a name like Okefenokee? 

It covers over 400, 000 acres of
southeast Georgia wetland.
A myriad of dark water pathways
crisscrossing a peat moss swamp.
Better explored by canoe, we only
had our bikes & so biked the short 16 mile loop
that meanders the pine swampland.

Met this guy to our left, and several others along the way, within feet of our bike.

And then.....
 our last camping adventure took us to what might be my favorite of the entire trip.
Cumberland Island National Seashore.
wow
18 miles long, 3 miles wide, 140 wild ponies, dense gnarled live oak maritime forests,
wide open wind swept beaches.
It ranks up there as one of the most beautiful places in this country.
And that says a lot.

The last week or more of our trip we visited with some truly

wonderful friends en route home, 

in the Carolinas & D.C..... 

 

But alas, few pictures were snapped.This all too often happens 

when I hang out with good friends.

Feels good to be home though. 

Next on the agenda is to give my studio space a major overhaul 

and get back into the making of things!