Trick question.
It might just be New Orleans, depending on your definition of a gallery.
For my birthday this year, we squeezed in a three-day weekend in New Orleans, a city that has been on our bucket list for years. I knew there would be incredible food, music, history, and art. What I didn’t expect was just how much there would be to look at. And I mean up.
The Other Kind of Gallery
One thing I learned while wandering through the French Quarter is that those beautiful iron structures wrapping around the upper floors aren’t all balconies. A balcony projects from the building, while a gallery is supported by columns or posts that extend to the ground.
Once I knew the difference, I started seeing galleries everywhere. The ironwork alone sent my jewelry brain in a hundred directions: repeating patterns, geometry, negative space, oxidation, and surfaces changed by time.
Art, Antiques & Architecture
Then there are the actual galleries, many filled with work by local artists. The antique shops were just as fun, packed with old jewelry, silver, furniture, paintings, and plenty of mysterious objects.
But some of my favorite inspiration was simply walking through the French Quarter.
Freshly painted pinks, greens, blues, and yellows sit alongside faded paint, cracked plaster, exposed brick, worn shutters, and rusted iron. I found myself photographing walls, doors, windows, and interesting color combinations everywhere we went.
It’s the same reason I’m drawn to unusual stones. The imperfections, patterns, inclusions, and variations in color are often what make a material interesting.
Take a look at the photo above next to a necklace I recently finished. The colors are surprisingly similar.
It’s a pretty good example of how the things I see eventually find their way into my jewelry. I’m constantly collecting combinations of color, pattern, texture, and shape. I may not have a particular piece in mind at the time, but those visual notes stick with me. They often influence the raw materials I’m drawn to when sourcing stones, or even which tiny section of a stone I choose to cut and build a new design around.
A Lot to Pack Into Three Days
There is so much history layered into New Orleans, and I had our three-day agenda packed with guided walking tours, museum tickets, restaurant reservations, and even a cocktail-making class.
I’ll choose an art museum every time, while my husband will head straight for the history museum, so our trips usually include a healthy dose of both. This time, history may have won. The National WWII Museum was incredible, easily one of the best history museums we’ve ever visited. Think Disney for history nerds. It’s immersive, fascinating, and HUGE. We could have wandered around in there for most of the day.
Food is always high on our list when we travel, and I had researched restaurants and made reservations well in advance so we could experience as much of the local cuisine as possible. No surprise, we had the best gumbo we’ve ever had.
I don’t necessarily come home from a trip with a specific design ready to make. Instead, I come home with colors, shapes, textures, patterns, and stories that eventually find their way back to my bench.
New Orleans gave me plenty to work with.
Curious to see where all that inspiration goes? Visit my website to explore my latest one-of-a-kind jewelry and see what’s new from the bench.