Another Lapidary Day

Wednesday is now lapidary day, I hereby declare, at least until I finish some of the pieces I started last year. Here are six of the seven pieces that I finished today. From left to right: two pieces of Gaspeite (I may have to keep the bottom one; it is SO beautiful and even has some crystal quartz running through it); Nacozari (Mexico) turquoise (top) and No. 8 turquoise (bottom); and Kingman turquoise (top; I may also keep this piece!) and Bacamite (bottom). I also finished a small Lepidolite pendant, but girl child ran away with it... I guess that one stays here, too. Next week I hope to finish two chrysoprase pieces, a green aventurine drop, the fossil coral repair/reshape, and the red Sonora Sunrise pendant. They need a few extra steps and will totally be worth it.

A Lapidary Day

I spent a good part of the day at the Two Cranes lapidary workshop today, where I expanded my skillset to include use of the lapidary saw and diamond-bit drill. I guess if I can use a table saw (YEAH I rock... but my 68-year-old mom who taught me rocks even more), a lapidary saw isn't much of a stretch, and in fact it was quite simple. Then I moved to the grinding wheels for shaping the pieces I'd cut; the hardness of the gemstones I was working with (pictured above; I'll detail them in a moment) varied quite widely, so some needed a good bit of time on the roughest wheel whereas others just needed a quick zip there to take off edges before moving to the next two wheels.

So, what I worked on today, from left: a repair on an agate pillar whose top had broken off; next row (top to bottom): a stunning red piece of Sonora Sunrise, and a piece of fossil coral that had lost an edge and needed reshaping to a single-hole pendant; next row: lepidolite, Calico Lake onyx (the tiny piece, much more interesting than this lame camera-phone pic shows), and Bacamite (the big piece on the bottom, a chrysocolla-cuprite blend from the local Kelly mine area); and green aventurine (the hardest to grind). (The stone way on the right is a piece of turquoise in matrix that keeps breaking apart as I work it, so I'll let that one go.) The next step on these will be sanding, to remove scratches and prepare for final polish. I have eight or so other stones at the sanding/polishing stage also and hope to finish everything in two weeks (finding a full day for anything is nearly impossible, but this is SO worth it!). I love how meditative lapidary is, and of course Conne and Dean are wonderful company.

Tomorrow: mosaics! A local friend *gave* me a huge load of glass left over from her stained glass work, which she has given up due to chronic illness. Thank you so much, Aleta; you have no idea (well, you probably do!) how much it means for me to be able to jump into this new venture with both feet. So a New Moon Gallery sign will surely begin taking shape this weekend... all these wonderful things in my life. I am SO grateful.

"She Gathers Rain"

Okay, I'll be brave and show this: my first mosaic ever, made in Laura Robbins' Placitas, NM studio on May 16 of this year. My critique: the composition isn't great (I was rushed to finish it, and am definitely a novice), but it's an interesting start AND (most importantly) was just a blast to make. It was a good day for me overall -- a sort of rebalancing since May 16 now marks my college graduation (Penn 1988, summa cum laude thankyouverymuch), marriage anniversary (1998; it lasted 9.5 years, most of them very rough), and huge divorce case setback (2008; my relocation bid to take a GREAT job back in Philly was denied, leaving me with no income prospects beyond, say, Walmart). This day evened the score, so to speak.

The theme is actually an old one for me; the song "She Gathers Rain" by Collective Soul came out in 1995 just as I was breaking up with my then-boyfriend... now ex-husband... and the themes of cleansing and starting anew apply so much more now than they did then. (If I'd known then what I know now...) Rain imagery comes out often in my jewelry and takes up a good third of my mosaic sketchbook, so I consciously chose this theme for my first mosaic. I haven't finished any mosaics since then (materials shortage; bills come first, dangit), but I have several in progress. In fact, I am about to start shaping gemstone scraps for a "personal mandala" mosaic that also includes some beautiful glass pieces generously given to me by Sara Creekmore and David Durham, who live just up the mountain. This image shows the glass pieces (mortared into place on the Hardibacker), a sketch of what's to come (rain, water, reeds; kind of a circle of water thing), and the "fringe" of copper and glass beads. That last part... well, what did you expect?

A little lapidary: "A fragment of the starry firmament" {sold... alas...}

I have very little time for lapidary work or anything else now that I've started school full-time (an MS program in counseling, my answer to the question pondered earlier this year), but I do believe my limited time at Dean and Conne's workshop is well spent. Still in practice mode, I worked this freeform lapis lazuli piece from a scrap left over from a recent batch of beautiful Two Cranes beads. I made it expressly for wirewrapping, and the gold-fill wire was an obvious choice given the beautiful pyrite that emerged as I ground and then polished the stone. I kept the wirework simple (improvising as usual) because, really, the stone is what we all want to see. The pendant measures a little over 1.5 inches (33 mm) and is on a necklace of lapis chips and rounds with vermeil (sterling silver plated with 18-karat gold) spacers and beads.

(BTW, the quote in this entry's title comes from Pliny the Elder, referring, of course, to lapis lazuli. Such an apt description.)

More Sonora Sunrise Stones and Jewelry

As promised, here are some more pictures of the Sonora Sunrise stones I've just started working with, along with another finished necklace. The overview above shows most of what I have, and it is beautiful. First, the newly finished necklace of Sonora Sunrise, turquoise, cultured pearls, smoky quartz, and sterling silver:



I just picked up two mostly-red pendants from Dean and Conne; the red is cuprite, and it has awesome depth of hue and texture. I haven't decided what to do with these yet, but I'd better decide soon because red is another HOT color for this fall and winter.



Here are three of Dean and Conne's scraps that I ground and polished myself into freeform stones for wirewrapping:



I'm thinking of putting this ethereal pendant on a necklace of turquoise, onyx, pearls, and coral:



That's all for now.

Tears of the ages

The merry month of May has been far crueler to me this year than April ever could be*, but I now have something beautiful to hold onto: my first lapidary pieces. Two Cranes' Dean and Conne have warmly welcomed me into their workshop, where I'm finding amazing solace in the repetitive, mechanical, yet creative work of shaping and polishing stone. These pieces are from some scraps of aurichalcite that Dean got from a local rock shop; although most aurichalcite appears as tiny, almost hair-like crystals on matrix, many specimens from the Kelly Mine just south of Magdalena, NM, have a botyroidal formation that looks like a solidified thick bubbly blue stew on one side (the crust) and is strikingly striated on the other. (Sorry; couldn't resist the alliteration.) I have more scraps of this and other stones in various stages of grinding and will continue to immerse myself in this new avocation as I figure out what on earth to do next.

(* a T.S. Eliot reference for the non-poetically inclined)