Australian Jelly Opal Focal Bead Pendants

Howdy Folks! Well I LOVE cutting opals but I seldom can find affordable rough to cut to do the kind of cutting that I want to do. Luckily I have a well to do, rock hound, big brother, who likes to get me opal rough for my birthday! In August he sent me a 3/4 POUND chunk of Australian jelly opal rough as a birthday present! Jelly opal is precious opal that is transparent or mostly transparent with a bluish iridescence. This piece would also be considered crystal opal because it is mostly transparent and has play of color in the blue, purple, and green colors.

My big bro was at a rock and gem show in Northern California and some old timer was selling off his collection and only charging what he paid for the items 30 to 40 years ago, so my brother got a really good deal on the rough. Here's a pic of the rough as I got it.... and from this piece of rough, I was able to cut the following focal bead pendants....

THis freeform measures 57x20mm by 8mm thick with a 3mm drill hole and weighs in at 59 carats....

and this teardrop shaped bead is 53x20mm by 8mm thick, 3mm drill hole, and weighs in at 63 carats...

and the biggest one I cut so far is this one, a long rounded oval, that measures in at 72x17mm by 11mm thick, 3mm drill hole, and weighs a total of 82 carats...

.

Opals are very hard to photograph as they don't really show the play of color. I have an old camera that takes good macro photos and it is able to take little 30 second videos so I decided to try my hand at making little short videos of the opals moving around in the light. The focus isn't the greatest but they really help see the optical phenomena within the gemstone. Here are the links to the videos on youtube of the above stones if you want to get a better look....

59 carat freeform jelly opal video

63 carat teardrop jelly opal video

82 carat long oval Jelly Opal video

I've already sold two other beads I made out of this rough. There's enough to make one more BIG bead (which I may keep for myself!), two smaller ones (well, small for me, not small for jelly opal beads!) and some smaller pieces that I will probably inlay into my jet mourning beads as they look so good against a black background. If you're interested in any of these beads, they're all in my DVHdesigns eBay store, up at auction closing on Monday.

Thanks for looking and I'll post more pics as I finish the rest of the opals.

Iolite Sunstone from Tanzania, new lapidary work!

Howdy Folks, lately I've been on YET ANOTHER bit of a spree with phenomenal stones. These are those stones with properties that cause optical phenomena to occur within the stone. The major categories are Asterism in star stones (ruby, sapphire, etc) which is caused by fiber like inclusions in the crystal; Opalescence (opals) a milky to rainbow play of color caused by large spheroid structures of silica in the stone; Labradorescence (labradorites & many feldspars) which is broad multicolor flashing surfaces; Adularescence which is a glowing effect as seen in moonstones; Aventurescence which is a sparkling, more glitter like, effect caused by metal or glassy looking inclusions in the stone; Chatoyance (from the French "Chat Oeil", or "cat eye") which is a gleaming effect all over or in a distinct cat's-eye; Schiller which is a directional sheen or shimmer; and finally Irridescence or Iris effect which is a play of color of rainbow colors often caused by a fracturing within the stone.

I hand cut the lovely freeform, fan shaped, BEAD above which measures 33x39mm and is 9mm thick with a 2mm drill hole that runs through the center of the fan. Great for creative beading. WEIGHT IS 91 CARATS. It has a polished finish all over with low domes on both sides, nicely rounded edges. The stone shows some of the optical effects of schiller, aventurescence, chatoyancy, and iris effects. I carefully oriented this piece when I cut it and multiple optical phenomena are apparent. Most of this iolite has inclusions and healed fractures. In these stones that I have cut, the internal inclusions also create "iris effect" which are little refracted rainbows within the stone. I bought ALL of this rough material that I found available in Tucson this year, which came out to about 7 pounds. That was ALL of the material I saw at all of the shows I went to and I saw NO finished pieces anywhere! There is VERY LITTLE of this material available! If you don't believe me do an internet search for this stone by any of it's various names!

Here's another bead...

I have heard some call this material "Bloodshot Iolite" as well as "iris iolite" and there's even someone in Britain that calls it "starstone". It is a rare and unusual variety of iolite, the gemstone variety of cordierite, which is a magnesium aluminum silicate. This unique variation of iolite has inclusions of small flat platelets of reddish hematite or goethite. This creates the optical phenomena of adventurescence throughout the stone. It is the same mineral and optical effect found in feldspars that are sunstones, so this is also accurately referred to as "sunstone in iolite". Iolite is noted for it's pleasing blue color and is often mistaken for sapphire or tanzanite, which are both much more expensive.

and here's an oval shaped one....

I have never seen ANY of this rough available before my trip to the World's gem & mineral trade shows in Tucson in February of 2009. I saw ONE dealer who had this rough and that first year I bought his 8 nicest pieces, which yielded only 12 to 15 pieces that sold very quickly. Last year, in 2010, I bought only ONE small piece of rough from him. This year, in 2011, I bought ALL that he had, which totaled 7 pounds. That is all I have EVER seen of the rough and if you look around you won't find any other loose beads or custom cut cabs out of this material.

This is another lovely piece of the stuff...

This stone will have the properties of BOTH iolite and sunstone. Here are some of the mystical and healing properties of iolite that I found on the internet,

"As it's soft and gentle nature, iolite is used to help us connect with our souls. It will help us to understand who we are and why we are on the planet at this particular time...use this stone for guidance in difficult areas of your life. What is most unique about working with Iolite is the sense of protection you feel whilst delving into the deepest levels of your self, the comfort and calm it affords you. Iolite gives unconditionally, allow the positive energies of this stone to come into your life. Iolite is one of the best stones to use in psychic, healing, and spiritual activities. It can open one to psychic talents and expand them as well. Iolite is very helpful when dealing with addictions, including alcoholism. It assists in detoxification as well as maintaining sobriety. As well, Iolite is also said to help build relationships whether they be new or old. In the physical realm, iolite is used to help heal sore throat, varicose veins, and blisters, it is also told to aid in diminishing headaches and strengthen the entire system, promoting health on all levels. Iolite is considered a very strong "Shaman" stone, and can stimulate visions."

Here are some of the mystical and healing properties of sunstone that I found on the internet,

"Sunstone has a very positive effect on one's psyche, it promotes good humor, cheerfulness and an even temper. It may provide the necessary stamina and energy to undertake projects and tasks that one may find daunting. It offers self confidence and helps its wearer to discover her own nature and live accordingly. It assists its wearer in maintaining a positive attitude towards her own life and to use inherent strengths while still allowing the sunny side of the personality raise to the forefront. Keep Sunstone with you at all times if you have difficulty saying "no" to people, and you continually make sacrifices for others. Sunstone will detach your feelings of being discriminated against, disadvantaged or abandoned; it will remove inhibitions and hang up, reversing feelings of failure. It will increase feelings of self-worth, and confidence encouraging optimism and enthusiasm. It will switch all feelings to a positive take on any event. Even the most incorrigible pessimist will respond to Sunstone. Sunstone enables and enhances it's wearer with self healing powers. It stimulates the vegetative, autonomic nervous system and enhances the harmonious functioning of all the body's organs. It is quite helpful in cases of exhaustion due to lack of sleep. It will treat chronic sore throats and relieves the pain of stomach ulcers. It is quite successful on Seasonal Affective Disorder (or SAD), it is also known to relieve cartilage problems, rheumatism and general aches and pains. Sunstone will lift depression and free it's wearer from feelings of discrimination and failure as well as images of an 'evil world'. Sunstone easily increases a sense of self-esteem as well as self-worth. Sunstone is particularly beneficial when used in the sun, sunshine, or sunlight."

Well thanks for letting me share! I'm also cutting some fantastic sunstone-moonstone hybrids, some PHENOMENAL silvery black moonstones, and even some deep earthy red moonstones that I call "Martian Moonstone". Back to the grind! (P.S. my primary venue for my work is my DVHdesigns eBay store. I don't really do custom cutting but I do take suggestions!)

New Picasso Marble from Utah!

Hi all, I got some more of the rough Picasso marble material from Utah and here is the first batch of stones I cut out of it....One interesting thing about the new material is that in the pieces with the thick, black band, there are some very tiny specks of golden pyrite! Got most of these listed in my eBay store and will be cutting more soon! Thanks for looking.

Picasso Jasper (marble) from China vs. Utah

Picasso Marble is a really wonderful stone that was first mined in Utah. I cut these using rough material from the big NEW find in China that is noted for it's brick red, forest green and other unique colors. I got ONE chunk of the Chinese rough when I was in Quartzite in January 2011. Not much rough leaves China, for obvious reasons. This material is NOT to be confused with the original find of "PICASSO JASPER" that is from Utah. The UTAH Picasso "Jasper" is really beautiful but it is in shorter supply and has mostly just black, grey, brown, and tan colorings in it that make it distinctive from the Chinese material. The Chinese material is also called "Cherry Creek Jasper" by American lapidaries, but "Picasso Jasper" is used 70 times as often to describe this stone (trust me, I did the eBay searches and I know what I'm looking at!). The rough chunk that I got was very porous and I have heard from a trusted gem dealer friend of mine that much, if not most, of this material coming out of China is treated or stabilized to make it be able to take a polish. I understand why they do this, but I prefer to leave my beads with a satin matte finish rather than soak them in a resin or a urethane just to make them shiny.

The patternings in this material from CHINA are so unique with so many resembling abstract paintings in earthy colors, that there is really nothing quite like it. One of those stones I've never gotten bored with!

A lot of people call it Picasso Jasper, but it is a marble, NOT a jasper. People in the trade use the term "jasper" as if it was interchangeable with the word "stone". Technically it is a metamorphosed limestone occurring in the form of a coarse to medium grained rock of re-crystallized dolomite or calcite. It is now mined in relatively large quantities and is commercially available. It is commonly cut into beads, cabs, donuts, spheres, and carvings. I really enjoy the earthiness and the patterning of this material. For some reason no one else seems quite able to bring the same qualities out of this stone that I do. My Picasso Marble beads are a big hit wherever I go and they have become somewhat of a staple and a signature stone here at DVHdesigns. I think that part of the attraction is that I've been cutting it for years and no matter how much I cut, no two are ever really alike. The rough material from Utah is very similar in "patterning" but it takes a MUCH BETTER polish than the material from China. I've never had any trouble getting a mirror polish on the Utah material using just a muslin buffing wheel with Zam or Fabulustre. Here is a piece from Utah that is currently in my eBay store...

The Utah material has always had the look of bare trees on a dark Fall night! LOVE IT! I've cut more of this Utah material than I have ANY other stone in my life. I bought 100 pounds of it about 15 years ago and I have cut up almost all of it. I may have a pound or two left in scraps! I need to contact one of the few rough dealers that have any left and try and get another couple dozen pounds of rough in stock. It's a staple!

For those interested in the metaphysics of stones, I will include a little bit of information on this stone from Melody, author of Love Is In The Earth. Among the properties she attributes to this beautiful stone are, "facilitates the transformation of intuition into intellectual thought such that one can implement the instructions provided, It assists one to traverse changes , attracting strength and perseverance.....It can help to provide clarity to the inner sight, instilling a passionless peace of imperturability via the annihilations of disturbing thoughts." She goes on to say that, "It acts to stimulate the circulatory system, to reduce anxiety and stress, and to assist in digestions, regulation, and metabolism. It has been used in the treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome, cellular and organ toxicity, and to promote weight loss. " WOW! What a stone!

Thanks for letting me share my work here. I'm having a 20% off sale in my eBay store, with free shipping, until June 6th, so if you're inclined, check it out!

"Sonora Sunrise" Chrysocolla & Cuprite 2011

Hey Folks! A little over a year ago I ran a thread with images of work I did out of Sonora Sunrise and I included a picture of the one, four pound chunk of rough I had got in Tucson along with some images of the beads and cabs I cut from that rough. This year I scoured Quartzsite and Tucson for more of this beautiful rough! There wasn't much rough to be had and prices had increased a lot since last year. The one dealer I saw who had any quantity of decent quality rough, maybe a few hundred pounds, was asking 400% more than I had paid for that same quality last year. I ended up getting one decent 6 pound piece of rough from a dealer in Quartzsite and two small, top notch, AAA+ quality pieces that weighed about 2 pounds each, that I got from yet another dealer in Tucson. Less than 10 pounds total and a significant percentage of that gets ground into dust during sawing and shaping!

Sonora Sunrise is a completely natural mixture of chrysocolla (the turquoise colored part) and cuprite (the orange part) and tenorite (the black part) and sometimes brochantite (green specks). They're all copper minerals. It's from Mexico and has only been available in the lapidary world for 4 or 5 years. Very little is available and it is highly doubtful Here's a pic of the rough....

I really, REALLY, LOVE this stuff and wish there was more of it! I've already cut up about half of this stash. From the small piece on the left, which has the wonderful banding of blue-white, blue, black, orange, black, and blue! This is probably some of the BEST material I've ever seen in this and I've already taken steps to keep two of the stones I made out of this for myself (last years piece was as good or better and I did NOT save one for myself!)

and here are some pieces I made out of the "blue white" part of the chrysocolla, along with a natural edged "tornado" shaped cab I made, and the little orange pointed teardrop is made from the other piece of top quality rough (the small piece on the right of the pic of rough).... In this next pic, the top row is made from the piece of the rough on the right as well. I consider this top notch, AAA+ material as well. The bottom row is all made from the large chunk in the middle of the picture. I really love the subtler, more variegated and muted colors and patterns of turquoise and orange found in the larger chunk of rough and it actually takes a little better polish than the more vivid quality colored rough. IF I had never been exposed to the AAA rough, I would still be absolutely ga-ga over the rough from the middle piece of rough! All this material came from the same mine.

The larger chunk has the cuprite only running across the top edge of the rough. You can see in the 3rd and 6th beads in the bottom row that I left the top of the bead with the natural surface of the stone. So on that larger piece there was a significant piece that was mostly chrysocolla with the turquoise blue grey coloring but it has a VERY cool vein of hematite-iron oxide that runs through it and in some places that vein turns to orange cuprite. I'm enjoying just playing with the bisecting pattern of that vein as well! If one can have a love affair with a kind of rock, that's what I'm having with this stone!

FYI, a little education about the nomenclature of this stone and some caveat emptor if you're buying "Sonora Sunrise". The name is a "trade name" for this particular combination of chrysocolla and cuprite from Sonora, Mexico. It has also been co-opted by Chinese dealers for fake gemstones. I just did a search on eBay and there are only 400 items that come up with a search for "sonora sunrise". Out of those 400 items, 288 are "sonora sunrise jasper" pendants or cabs and every SINGLE ONE is a dyed, unnatural color, sold by Hong Kong dealers, and is NOT sonora sunrise at all! Sonora Sunrise is NOT a jasper anyway. Interestingly, if you do an advanced search for "sonora sunrise -jasper" out of the 112 responses one gets, nearly every one IS genuine Sonora Sunrise Chrysocolla and is sold by an American Lapidary. Just doing my bit to educate the beaders and jewelers of the world about real and unique semi-precious gemstones!

Thanks for letting me share my work and my stone geek knowledge!

New work in genuine jet, mourning jewelry, a new story...

Good Mourning Folks,

It's been quite awhile since I wrote about my work with jet and making mourning jewelry. If you check my old thread you can see all the information that I've posted before. I'm still working quite a bit of jet and I gave a lecture last month for the Portland Bead Society about the history of jet and my work with jet. It went over really well and I'm tentatively schedule to give the jet lecture again for the San Diego Bead Society in January of next year!

I learned even more about jet while preparing for my powerpoint lecture for PBS. Most people are familiar with jet's historic uses in Victorian times as traditional mourning jewelry to help women deal with their bereavement, and as one of the only true, naturally black, organic accessories available to go with a widow's weeds. Dealing with my own grief from loss of family and the ravages of surviving 30 years of the AIDS epidemic is one of the things that has pushed me, and keeps pushing me, to work with this unusual organic gemstone. Of course a lot of people think that because jet is black and it was used in Victorian mourning jewelry that it has ALWAYS been associated with death. I was happy to discover that is just not true!

In my research I found out that the cult of the Phrygian Earth goddess Cybele, the "Great Mother" of the ancient gods and goddesses, has an association with jet! Her cult spread from northern Turkey to Greece and then throughout the Roman empire. She was known as the "black stone", or the black faced goddess, because the most famous statue of her had a black meteorite for it's face! (unknown whether it was just a rough black meteorite or if it naturally formed to look like a face or if it had been sculpted to look like a face). To honor her, the priests in her cult wore jet beads! Here's a link to an article in the BBC about the archeological dig where they found this Roman transvestite eunuch priest decked out in jet beads! I still haven't been able to find pictures of THOSE actual beads, in spite of having directly contacted the guy who did this dig.

So I continue to work in jet and explore it's deep history. The earliest jet beads discovered were in an archeological dig in northern Spain and date from 17,000 BCE!. Here's some pics of my current work in jet....

Most everything I take to a high polish but some of them I've been leaving matte finish. My friend in Scotland and I have been collaborating more and here are some necklaces she's strung with some of my jet focal beads... This one has what I call "ash blonde" tigereye beads in it (like much tigereye, I imagine these were color treated with heat or bleaching)

and here are two more necklaces made with jet focals and white magnesite beads. I suspect that the white magnesite, which was sold as "white turquoise" (NO such thing), is reconstituted (certainly the spikes are) but it definitely goes well with the jet focals and jet spacers!

That's all for now! I just wanted to get "back in black" and tell y'all a NEW story about the history of jet! Thanks for letting me share and feel free to check out my DVHdesigns eBay store if you would like to see more of my work!

The Goddess Opal & the Virgin Yowah Nut Opal

Hey folks! Haven't blogged for a long time now it seems, but I've got some help now in the studio with my photography and eBay listing so I'm getting lots more cut and will hopefully have more time to share images of my work and my thoughts on gems and stones.

This is my current favorite new stone! I call it my "Goddess Opal".

I hand cut and polished this piece out of a rare and unusual piece of rough. It is a conglomerate, or cluster, of little pieces of genuine Lightning Ridge Black Opal still in the soft, sandy matrix in which it is found in the mines in Australia. I got this ONE chunk of rough and rather than cut it up into a half dozen very small cabs I decided to work with it as is, including the matrix as a part of the pendant, and I am thrilled with the result! This piece feels very "Goddess/ss'ssssyyyyy" to me and has since I started cutting it. It feels electric and organic, watery and hard, like it could be found at the bottom of the sea or in the desert at the end of a lightning bolt.... I wore this to Faerie Coffee here in Portland, Oregon today and someone said "Holy Cow! What's THAT! It looks like an electric Venus of Willendorf.

The total weight on this piece is 218 cts, including the matrix. There are 8 protrusions of solid opal that shows beautiful, electric purple color and fire. There are 3 more protusions of solid opal that are also lovely but don't show any fire, just clear or cloudy opal. The entire piece measures 60x36x26mm and there is a 3mm drill hole through the matrix. I hand sanded all the opal surfaces. To help strengthen the matrix I applied a thin layer of a cyanoacrylate stabilizing agent which just barely soaked into the soft matrix and allowed me to put a minor polish on the rock like muddy matrix that these opals occur in. The whole piece was tumbled for a few hours in a gentle tumbler with a 600 grit abrasive to both strength test it and to put a soft organic, uniform feel to the whole shape after my initial sanding of the black opal surfaces. I then hand polished all the opal surfaces and put a buff polish on the surface of the matrix.

This amazing stone looks like some wierd combination of jelly fish and fungus with a purple bioluminscent glow. It evokes a flowery form and has been stopping people in their tracks when I wear it! Here's another view of the same stone....

Here's another stone that is also an opal, and also from Australia, and also makes me think "Goddess" but it couldn't be more different!

I hand cut and polished this piece out of a rare and unusual piece of rough. It is from a stone nodule called a Yowah Nut, which is a concretion of opal and ironstone in matrix. Found in the mines of Queensland, Australia. I got this ONE chunk of rough and I wasn't too impressed because I could tell that the opal in this piece was just transparent honey colored, with no fire or play of color. I liked the patterns though and decided to cut it into an amulet. It wasn't until I was doing the final polishing on it that I saw the FIGURE coming out of the cave in the center of the stone!!!! This piece feels very "God/dess/ss'ssssyyyyy" to me and has since I started cutting it. I don't know if it's Mary, Guadalupe, Jesus, or some prophet coming out of that dark brown cave surrounded by honey colored opal, but it has blown my mind and surprised everyone I've shown it to! I see a cloaked figure, hands folded, with a tiny little cross above their head. It also looks like the figure is emanating from the small dark brown pillar at the base, almost like a Genie from a bottle. What do you see? How does this stone speak to you?

The total weight on this piece is 130 cts. The entire piece measures 53x40x8mm and there is a 4mm drill hole through the matrix on the top of the face. I hand polished all the opal surfaces and put a buff polish on the surface of the matrix which were too soft to take a high polish. Here's another image of the cloaked figure emerging from the cave, with a little more detail....

That's it for now! I'm cutting lots more stuff in all different kinds of materials, so I hope folks will check out my work!