Typically, the term “city break” is used to describe a short holiday spent in a European city. Whether it’s a romantic long weekend in Paris, a cultural getaway to Barcelona or a history junket to Rome, memorable city breaks are within easy reach when you’re in Europe.
There are hundreds of European cities, all with their own unique cultures and attractions, from which to choose. I know this to be true from the years my husband and I lived in Germany. More recently, my European Christmas Market tour included several short city visits including Frankfurt (top left) and Dresden (top right) in Germany, Prague in Czechia (bottom left) and Vienna in Austria (bottom right). For a deeper dive into these city visits, see Postcards from Germany #1, Postcards from Germany #2, and Postcards from Czechia and Austria.
Over the last week, however, I enjoyed a different kind of city break―three days in Atlanta, Georgia. After living part-time in Atlanta’s Midtown for over 5 years, I’m quite familiar with the city. I’ve also taken numerous day trips to the city to attend events and see specific exhibits or attractions. But taking a city break in Atlanta allowed me to experience the city in a whole new way.
Piedmont Park, for instance, is a 189-acre urban park where I used to walk daily. It was nice retracing my old route and stopping to admire the familiar sights. This view of the Atlanta skyline never grows old.
The original impetus for my Atlanta City Break was a two-part Intro to Kumiko class. My final itinerary, however, was packed with destinations―including old favorites I’ve been eager to revisit and new places I’ve been wanting to explore. I’d like to share the highlights in this blog post.
First up, was a visit to SCAD FASH which is the Museum of Fashion + Film at the Atlanta campus of the Savannah College of Art and Design. I’ve visited SCAD FASH several times and I’ve never been disappointed―this visit was no different. There were two exhibitions on display and both were great.
The exhibition Imane Ayissi: From Africa to the World was outstanding! Award-winning, “Cameroonian designer Imane Ayissi creates garments that aesthetically blend African craftmanship and hallmarks of the French sensibility. … his meticulous designs are sumptuous constructions that emphasize corporeal movement, stemming from his background as a dancer and model. … Dedicated to amplifying the culturally rich textile and sartorial heritage of Africa … his couture pieces prominently feature raffia, Obom bark cloth, Faso Dan Fani stripes, and Kente cloth.”
Ayissi’s creations featuring natural raffia from Madagascar were especially stunning.
Seeing his original design sketches and fabric swatches, like this one for a crocheted yellow raffia dress, was fascinating.
The other SCAD FASH exhibition was Sandy Powell’s Dressing the Part: Costume Design for Film. Powell “is a formidable force in the filmmaking industry. Her work is continually recognized and celebrated among her peers, earning the highest honors for achievement in costume design, including three Academy Awards”. The exhibition showcases “Powell’s 40-year career of storytelling within a series of vignettes featuring more than 70 costumes from nearly 30 films” including The Young Victoria, Cinderella, The Aviator and Shakespeare in Love.
Check out these dramatic, ostrich-feather trimmed jumpsuits from a 1993 movie called Wittgenstein.
The costumes for Walt Disney’s 2015 movie, Cinderella, were spectacular.
I’ve always wondered how a slipper could be made of glass―now I know!
Powell’s costumes cross an “array of genres, periods, and realities” but my favorites were the elaborate Elizabethan era gowns like the one, pictured below, which Gwyneth Paltrow wore in the 1998 movie Shakespeare in Love.
See the blog post, Kaleidoscope of Fashion, for a visit to the previous SCAD FASH exhibition featuring Mary Katrantzou.
Located a few blocks from SCAD FASH is the Center for Puppetry Arts. The Center’s Worlds of Puppetry Museum is reported to have the “world’s largest collection of Jim Henson artifacts and … one of the largest collections of global puppetry artifacts in the hemisphere”. The Center also produces hundreds of performances annually and offers a wide variety of in-person and digital educational programs.
The Worlds of Puppetry collection showcases puppets from a number of different countries. Shown below are:
. an American puppet, named Punch (of Punch and Judy fame), which is a glove puppet created by Matthew Stoddart
. a Vietnamese dragon puppet that dances on water. The floating wooden figures are controlled by performers with submerged rods, cords and chains
. a Japanese puppet, named Osome, which is a three-puppeteer rod puppet from Minosuke Yoshida, a Living National Treasure of Japan circa 1865
. an Indonesian puppet, named Antareja, which is a shadow puppet made from leather.
Seeing the array of puppets from around the world was fascinating. The highlight of my visit, though, was the Jim Henson exhibit. Not only were Kermit, Miss Piggy and my other childhood favorites on display but there was also a reconstruction of his puppet-making workshop.
The Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking, located at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has a comprehensive exhibit on the history of papermaking. But having seen that exhibit before, I skipped straight through to their most recent exhibition―Night Circus―which showcases the work of 31 members of the Guild of Book Workers. The artists were challenged to “interpret the theme of Night Circus, invoking curiosity with its spectacle, fascination with artistry and performance, exploration of the mysterious and luminous, investigation of clandestine actions and secret knowledge, and embrace of chaos and otherness”. The result was an impressive variety of interpretations and artworks.
Bookbinder Monique Lallier chose to bind the book Pour la Grandeur de l’Homme which was “written in 1969 by Claude Péloquin, renowned poet in Québec”. It contains “a series of poems about love, life and sex” bringing the Night Circus theme to mind. The vibrant colors and flowing lines of Lallier’s design caught my eye. She used “goatskin leather, green leather and tissue paper, Kumihimo braids (by the binder), suede fly leaves and green foil”.
I’m including this next work for the salmon enthusiasts in my life. Bound by Sara Pines, the book, I Sing the Salmon Home, is an “anthology of poems inspired by the cycles, spirit, and wisdom of salmon”. Pines bound the book with “naturally dyed salmon parchment (by the binder), board, Hook Pottery paper, reflective mylar film, graphite and embroidery thread”.
The Museum of Papermaking has appeared on this blog a few times in the past―see Natural Dye Making and Little Golden Books Illustrations Showcased.
The next stop on my Atlanta City Break―the Peachtree Road United Methodist Church―was not your typical Atlanta destination but it was the best surprise! I visited this church to see their commemorative origami art installation featuring hundreds of paper doves. I’ll share a sneak peek here but I’m holding back the story with the rest of the fabulous photos for another blog post―please stay tuned for the next episode, as they say.
It rained for the first two days of my Atlanta City Break. But, luckily, it stopped on the third day and the weather was perfect for a visit to the Atlanta Botanical Garden. I never grow tired of this magical place! Every visit reveals a new sight, smell, sound or experience. During this visit, the recent rain created shimmering surfaces and the pending arrival of spring brought bright, new blooms.
The artwork, Luminous Wire Birds by Cédric Le Borgne, features 10-foot wire mesh figures. Without the distraction of winter lights or summer foliage, these dramatic bird sculptures dominated this area of the garden.
The Mary Ellen Imlay Channel Garden also stands out at this time of year.
The first blooms of spring―paperbush, hellebore, magnolia and camellia―were popping up throughout the Garden.
I’ve had the pleasure of visiting the Atlanta Botanical Garden more times than I can remember. A few of those visits have been shared here on the blog―see Towering Trolls in the Garden and A Rainbow Sky of Fluttering Ribbons.
The final stop on my Atlanta City Break was the Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA). This museum is “dedicated exclusively to the study and celebration of all things design … such as architecture, graphic design, and more”. Their current exhibition, Threads of Change: Design & Data, is described as an “exhibition that explores the intricate connection between humanity and the natural world. By translating scientific data into striking textile installations”. Scientific data and textile installations? Now, there’s a combination I wanted to see!
The exhibition kicked off with this display of the Tempestry Project by the Knit Wits of North Decatur Presbyterian Church. This project “transforms climate data into fiber art, creating knitted or crocheted works that visually represent daily high temperatures for specific years and locations. The name ‘Tempestry’ blends ‘temperature’ and ‘tapestry’, reflecting the project’s mission to weave together climate data and artistic expression. Each Tempestry is a visual embodiment of a year’s worth of daily high temperatures, with January at the bottom and December at the top, using a standardized color palette: cool tones like blues and greens indicate lower temperatures, while warm hues such as oranges and reds represent higher temperatures”.
This technique has become quite popular lately with quilts, scarves, blankets, and wall art reflecting a year’s worth of daily temperatures.
The Institute for Figuring (IFF) display also caught my eye. The IFF is “an organization that explores the poetic and aesthetic dimensions of science, mathematics, and technical arts. Their flagship project, the Crochet Coral Reef, merges art and science to address topics like climate change and marine ecology”.
Giant replicas of coral have been crocheted and hand-crafted from a variety of materials including yarn, felt, cable ties, videotape, chicken wire, plastic shopping bags and found plastic trash.
A unique aspect of this project was the global collaboration that led to this work. “Thousands of people around the world have contributed to the project, each adding their own stitches and creativity. Together, they’ve created an ever-growing body of work that embodies the power of collective action, showing how small, individual efforts can combine to make something extraordinary.” For instance, this piece, called EA, was made between 2009-2014 and is attributed to six artists from across the USA.
The beauty of the pieces, such as MEDUSA shown below, was most apparent in the details.
As mentioned at the top of this post, the original impetus for my Atlanta City Break was a two-part Intro to Kumiko class. I’ve been intrigued by this Japanese fine woodworking technique for some time and it was the perfect opportunity to give it a try. I’ll save that experience for a separate blog post but, in the meantime, here’s an example of a beautiful kumiko panel on a wooden box.
More Info
Previous blog posts mentioned in this blog post include:
. Postcards from Germany #1
. Postcards from Germany #2
. Postcards from Czechia and Austria
. Kaleidoscope of Fashion at SCAD FASH
. Natural Dye Making at the Museum of Papermaking
. Little Golden Books Illustrations Showcased at the Museum of Papermaking
. Towering Trolls in the Garden at the Atlanta Botanical Garden
. A Rainbow Sky of Fluttering Ribbons at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.
To learn more about the destinations mentioned in this blog post, see the websites linked below:
. Piedmont Park
. SCAD FASH
. Center for Puppetry Arts
. Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking
. Peachtree Road United Methodist Church Sanctuary Doves
. Atlanta Botanical Garden
. Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA).
Atlanta, Georgia, USA offers many more reasons to visit than those I’ve listed including vibrant neighborhoods, generous city parks, rich history, active food scene, lively music, popular sports, extensive culture and various attractions. According to the Discover Atlanta website, “National Geographic selected Atlanta as one of the top destinations to visit in the National Geographic Best of the World 2022 list. Atlanta was distinguished as the only U.S. city in Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel list for 2022.”
Today’s Takeaways
1. A city break is a short holiday spent in a city.
2. Consider exploring your own backyard by taking a city break in a nearby destination.
3. When planning a city break, consider revisiting favorite places as well as exploring new ones.
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