We're All Ears :: August Reveal

This month's Earrings Everyday inspiration is otherworldly Antelope Canyon.  Located in northern Arizona on the Navajo Reservation, it can only be accessed by licensed tours with a guide and a permit. Our blog hostess, Erin's lyrical description in this post inspired this found poem. The poetic language is Erin's, rearranged into a poetic format by me.

The Inpiration

Slot canyons

chasms eroded over eons

by wind and rain

and raging floods

liquid gold

magical shafts of light

secret chambers of canyons

undulating sandstone walls

moving curves

like pulled and stretched taffy 

playing with depth perception

fantastic living sculptures

shifting and changing with time

Twisting and turning

corridors of light

beckoning discovery 

what mystery lies beyond

the next terra cotta bend

revered as sacred ground

by native peoples

an aura of hallowed ground

in these caverns

of vaulted rooms

in a grand cathedral

sandy rock rolls and swells

like waves on a molten lava sea

an otherworldly feeling

echoes keep us

hushed in wonder

by awe-inspiring vistas

a restful, meditative place

full of energy

spellbinding at every turn

~ Words by Erin Prais-Hintz

~ Rearranged by Cindy Martin-Shaw

(I always loved the teaching middle-schoolers how to write found poems in my middle-school English class.) 

The Earrings

It's all about stone, a wondrous gift of the earth. I find stones mesmerizing, and these photos of slot canyons are the ultimate in stone beauty.  I knew right away the material I wanted to use in this challenge, but executing my vision proved to be a harder aspect of this project. 

Hidden away safely in my workroom hutch cabinet is a treasure box of matched stone pairs that have been waiting for just the right moment to shine in the spotlight. My cousin Kathie went to the Bead & Button Show in Philadelphia last June and discovered a lapidary vendor specializing in matched pair gemstones. Serindipitously, I had been eyeing and drooling over such stones on-line. After exchanging dozens of texts of stone photos and making difficult, yet exciting, choices, my stones arrived in the mail. Like a child at Christmas, I unwrapped each set of stones gleefully and swiftly realized that these beauties would become items to hoard. I loved every single one of them; how could I ever part with them? So there they sat, tucked away, for months.  . . 

. . . nestled in their little boxes

On 

. . . all shapes, sizes, and colors

. . . waiting for inspiration to hit

. . . and then this challenge was posted. Thank you, Erin, for inspiring me to take the plunge with my stash.

Designing with these stones presented interesting challenges. I decided to just let the stones speak to me. One pair of jasper stones stood out from the rest, and they chose these rustic, old, brick red trade beads (from Happy Mango Beads), turquoise, and copper to join them.

In experimenting with how to wrap these stones, I wasted a lot of copper wire but finally got things right. After they were wrapped and the copper was oxidized, they looked just okay . . . too plain. I decided to add a little splash of color and soft texture by wrapping and knotting some sage-colored waxed linen. 

Now they felt complete. I love the swirls of color in the stone, like the sandstones of the canyon. 

I usually make several pairs of earrings for these challenges, but this pair took all of my energy, and I am very pleased with them. To see other unique interpretations of Antelope Canyon, please visit the Earrings Everyday post HERE.