I like to explore and tell descriptive stories about places. I also make jewelry, music and mixed-media art.
Fancy Gap, Virginia, late October, 2025 October is a beautiful month in the Appalachian mountains, and this year has been no exception. While last fall, the effects of Hurricane Helene were ongoing, much of the area around Fancy Gap has recovered. A cool front has brought the first freeze, and the weather on my visit […]
Read More Fall at Fancy GapBy the spring, clogged with soggy leaves and fallen branches, surrounded on this slope of storm down trees and scattered car piecesOne flower shines in pinkish bloom, one resilient Rhododendron, queen of the holler. I descend to this hidden spot, grown over since my youth, beyond remnants of a homestead, some forgot. Clearing debris from the […]
Read More A Solitary Blossom at Fancy GapMarch, April, and May 2025 While walking in a brick plant, on pressed red earth near Moncure, NC, I step over small rectangular pieces of brick, lying across the lot. The size, flat surface, color palette and softness of this material, I felt, would be perfect for rune casting stones, and this source in the […]
Read More Rune Brick and Red Drek – Vikings in CarolingiaSomewhere 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 CarbontonPANGAEA is splitting slowly but not neatly. Forces pull apart land masses, and the water flows into the open space of the rift. The largest spaces eventually become part of the Atlantic. Smaller spaces become long, shallow lakes, swamps, and other wetlands, giving a habitat to large and small reptiles, insects, palm trees, and other […]
Read More Deep River Triassic Basin: A Grandmother of IndustriesJubilee Park, Ivanhoe, Virginia, mid-April 2024 Ivanhoe, the Fair now this is glamping true Revival, handling of the Serpentine embanked New (Kanawha) river The diva waters Still rush past this old railway, blast furnace and mine shaft left to history A fairground in the off-season, nearly empty Jubilee A small town that doesn’t need much […]
Read More Ivanhoe, the fair (a return)October 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, 2024
arianna's creative travels 