laurieopal

Cross posted as laurieopal on livejouranl

I'm taking time away from working on designs for Boskone to post tonight. I have 2 brilliant Ethiopian opal pendants, one delicate and one held by large jelly fish, a gorgeous large muticolored moss agate and a lovely complex serpentine. They are all in process. Will put up some photos of them next week,

This is a stunning opal in an ocean reef setting. The stone really spoke ocean to be and it was a joy to work with. From the collection of Barbara Erickson. Pendant is sterling silver about 1.75 inches.

I love cephalopods!

I've been really busy setting stones. These are some of the stones I have been setting in rings for Worldcon.

Lapis, amethyst hematite with pyrite, moonstone, kyanite, purple and blue deco spinal (synthetic), blue chaceldony, sun stone, malachite, patterned quartz, and pietersite. Took photo in haste and the stones are more beautiful than the picture.

Lots more to do but it's all coming along.

I've been working on a group of rings for Boskone as well as the new designs.

I love going through my stones and choosing them and I love the way they look in words.

Tigereye
Lavender jade - very delicate
African malachite - densely patterned
Watermelon tourmaline - small and clearly patterned
Blue tourmaline
Golden labradorite - small and vivid
Jadite - very soft subtle greens
Rainbow obsidian
Madiera topaz - really the color of the sherry
Bicolored pearl - baroque and pink and white

And now I'm going back to my wax bench.

My brain is seriously burned right now. I just finished packing the stones for Wiscon including the one's that just arrived from my lapidary.

It's all very meticulous work and while I love looking at all the new and now so new stones the concentration is fierce. Stones include druze crystals in a variety of minerals including a stunning large gem silica, pink opal from Peru, prenite (golden and new to me), and some stunning small Ethiopian opals.

(As I write,I am pretending not to see my cat, George, steal a pen, roll it across the floor and bury it under the rug. It seems a shame to deprive him of the pleasure.)

This is a beautiful covalite (They are found in conjunction with silver ore.) that I set for an antique Russian chain. The stone is a deep reflective, somewhat chatoyant dark blue that doesn't photograph well so you'll have to use some imagination. It's in a shade of gold made to harmonize with the deep gold of the chain. Pendant is about 1.75 inches. From the collection of Wendy Czarnecki.

Looking forward being less burned and being at Wiscon.

This is the octopus ring I'm been writing about. It's silver with black diamonds and a sapphire. Height is about 2". I love making cephalapods. I'd love to get a squid commission one day.

I'm currently polishing and setting rings for Wiscon.

Will have a photo of a Lloyd Eshbach jade in a Chinese mountain and waterfall design with a pine tree in yellow gold up soon. I'm just finishing the gold work on the cord.

Back to work.

I'm starting to get ready for my first ever and probably only home show (for all my jewelry) in San Francisco, at my friend Tracy's on Portrero Hill.

I'm going to give a stone talk, as I said earlier. I'm going through through my stones trying to pick out the ones I'm going to talk about. It's _hard_. It will certainly include some amazing opals and a vivid red ammonite I just got. But beyond that I'm still looking at stones and deciding. And I suspect Tracy's looking at her wines and thinking about what she's going to pour on Sunday.

As I said a week or so ago, it's 1-5 PM on Sunday the 13th. If you'd like to come, email me at ltedison@laurietobyedison.com

I'm going to try to put up the opal and silver Disc World sculpture tomorrow (with elephants).

These are 2 new opals that I just got. I'm thinking about designs.

I've just finished a silver lace opal pendant for the collection of Bayla Fine with at stunning microcrystalline opal and a silver casopyrite pendat for the colection of Beth Zipser.

The casopyrite design is heavily influenced by mid twentieth century modernism and particularly by the paintings of Mark Rothko. I saw a solo exhibition of his work at MOMA in New York many years ago that moved me deeply. I can still access how strongly I felt then.

I'm photographing them tonight.

Not sure if I'll be journaling again before the holidays, so best to everyone.

This is a peridot and tenerite. I designed it for the collection of Marsha Jones. It's the very first stone like this that I've worked with and I made a design that for me reflected the character of the stone.

I've been meaning to put this photo up for a while but I got involved in writing about designs I was working on now. And this was finished for the Chicago Worldcon so I could bring it to Marsha there. It looked perfect on her. When I'm doing commission work it never feels quite finished to me until I see the person wearing the piece. It's very personal work.

I've been doing the preliminary polishing on several new pieces tonight, including the kuroit opal and beautiful tear drop microcrystalline lightening ridge opal. I've previously done the preliminary polishing on the very detailed gold Irish setter ring and it's looking fabulous. Making something that is both very real and sits as a good abstract design on the hand can be a real challenge.

Also had a lovely first night of Chanukah with my family on Saturday. Tomorrow I'm planning to do some more polishing and also do some work on the waxes for square cut ruby earrings.

I'd been waiting to have the right concept for a stunning piece of Yellowstone agate. When Beth Zipser saw it she saw the Lascaux caves and their drawings. The Lascaux paintings are art I knew well and loved.

Lascaux (Lascaux Caves) is the setting of a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings . The original caves are located near the village of Montignac, They contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be 17,300 years old. They primarily consist of images of large animals, most of which are known from fossil evidence to have lived in the area at the time... Wikipedia

Given the scale of the pendant, I chose to do fine line drawings on the "cave" wall including a mammoth and a great elk. I looked at endless Lascaux drawings before I made my choices.

The drawings are too fine to really show up in the photograph but I think the photo still gives a good sense of the design.

Mood: Intense

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Entries tagged with stones

Ocean Opal

Ring Stones for Worldcon

A Lovely List of Stones

Stones for Wiscon and Covalite

Octopus Ring

Amazing Stones for Home Show

New Opal and Finished Work

Personal Design

Lascaux Cave Art Design

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April 2024

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