Atlanta Botanical Garden Blooms & Bubbly, March 28
Atlanta Botanical GardenBlooms & Bubbly, Thursday, March 28, 5-8PMFeaturing Elaina Designs Spring Jewelry Show at Mershon Hall
Admission to stroll the Gardens $18.95, ABG Members freeFriday 3/29 & Saturday 3/30, 1PM-5PM
The Elaina Designs Collection moves to the ABG Gift Shop, free admission to gift shop.
Enter adjacent paid parking garage from Monroe Dr. or main entrance on Piedmont Rd.
Lainey’s Garden Newsletter: March 2013
Years ago, I remember Dottie Fuqua coming to see me at the Signature Shop in the early eighties to have a ring sized. We spoke of our mutual appreciation of flowers, and of a “gift” she was planning to give to all Atlanta flower lovers. At the time I did not know who she was, but the delight in her eyes danced as she spoke of her dream, the originating seed that would become The Atlanta Botanical Garden.
When the invitation came last year to present a new series of botanically-inspired jewelry to be shown exclusively in the Atlanta Botanical Garden, it gave me a zap of much-needed inspiration. The concept of creating and showing on the grounds of my youth, in the neighborhood where I now live, work and play, beside Piedmont Park, was an organically grown, creative opportunity. But how to focus? Could I make flower jewelry?
No, but understanding the Mineral Kingdom as I do with its trace elements that produce color in all things, I understood botanical forms. I thought of the small critters essential to the production of rich soil that nurtures delicate roots and seeds. I thought of our sun and our planet intricately evolving inorganic with organic life forms, each essential to the other. I see gemstones as earth’s mineral flowers, yet presentation in jewelry I cared to manifest, offered critical challenges. I wanted this collection to be as alive as the minerals and gems would allow, presenting permanent vessels of color and form that could be worn and appreciated for generations to come.
Gradually, with tiny bursts of energy, each piece emerged and my garden grew, incorporating “dirty diamonds” that comprise a great deal of planetary stardust in the form of crystallized carbon, nestled among tiny geodes that bloom with gemmy color, and snail shell fossils with pearly, opalescent skin, slowing moving through the millennia. With your support this collection will continue to evolve and grow.
I invite you to stroll the fabulous ABG next weekend, share laughter, and drink in the blooms from many laboring hands, colored with trace elements that alight to form mysteries of natural beauty, botany and art.
Your smile is the reward,
Lainey
