I like to explore and tell descriptive stories about places. I also make jewelry, music and mixed-media art.
July 2026, North Georgia/NC This summer, I don’t go to Franklin for the gem shows. Since 2018, it’s been a major seasonal event for me, only skipping over one year because of the pandemic. However, I passed through the town on the 4th of July and had another kind of insightful experience. DRAINED SWAMP The […]
Read More Interdepence Day, A JourneyTucson, Arizona, February 2026 “Foraging jewels, left behind / with crushed hopes / Thick clouds cover sky islands, water dripping down its slopes / Rattling the rhythms of change, exposing debris / this is what we leave” -“Ready to be warmed by the Black Sun,” lyrics by Arianna It begins hopefully enough on my arrival. […]
Read More Sunset for TucsonSpruce Pine Mining District, North Carolina, July 2025 At the access to the mica mine stands a sign, “area closed to storm damage/not safe to enter.” Fallen trees and rocks rolled by nature can be seen. This is my first trip to western NC after Hurricane Helene. IT’S A SHAME ABOUT RAY I came for the […]
Read More GEMS OF THE BLUE RIDGE, GOING THROUGH CHANGESSomewhere in the middle of the Piedmont, a rocky river becomes silty and muddy and changes direction. Called the Deep River, it gives its name to the southeast’s largest Triassic rift Basin. The name “Deep River” is a translation of an indigenous name, sapponah (sappony), which, beyond this, has vague (conflicting?) sources but most likely […]
Read More The Deep River and its Triassic Basin: Cumnock to CarbontonCold Moon, December 2024 As the final full moon rises before winter solstice on a cloudy night in the North american eastern woodlands, I look back through the past solar year and then to the path that lies ahead. Earlier this year, I decided to update the name of this blog to “Arianna’s Creative Travels” […]
Read More Creative Travels: observations of a cycleAs cold weather envelops the Eastern Woodlands, local artisan markets or bazaars take form. This coming weekend, my “Starri Ari Stones” will be set up at two of these: Saturday, November 23, in Danville, VA at the community market downtown , and “Chance’s Flea” Sunday, November 24 at Rebus Works, Boylan Heights, Raleigh, NC. Times, […]
Read More Holiday Markets begin this weekendOctober 1, 2023, Norfolk, VA: I find my fall Gourd Goddess at Food Lion as part of a plentiful harvest of gourds and pumpkins. She’s an Ornamental Gourd, not hardshell, so she’s going to decay over the course of the coming winter. Last year I documented my Rotting Gourd Goddess’s journey for the first time, […]
Read More Journey of the Rotting Gourd Goddess, 2024Around Halloween, I bought a small Gourd from a market. She was orange and bright and alive, like the Pumpkins around her. Unlike the hard-shell Calabash Gourds used for containers, tools, and art objects for æons, she is an edible vine Gourd*, with the lifespan of a season or less. And so I sat her […]
Read More Journey of the rotting Gourd Goddess
arianna's creative travels 