I've been noticing watch parts and new chains turning up on the market and in jewelry. I like the look a lot, the shapes, the textures.
Polly Nobbs La Rue posted a piece on Facebook using watch parts and cold connections (rivets), which appealed to me very much and got me thinking. I ordered some watch parts, and considered them. Most are very delicate, and I haven't decided how to use them yet, as most of my jewelry features wire wrapping connections.
Also on my mind are all the varieties of chains out there in copper, brass, gunmetal and more. I brought home a selection from Tucson and made some items. Then I ordered some and bought more at Bead and Button. What a variety of chain types and colors!
I used some very heavy torch shimmered cable chain from Pashtoon Artifacts with a simple lapis lazuli donut for a bold yet simple style.
Then one day I went to the hardware store to get something and while there I saw all sorts of intriguing shapes and textures in the hardware department. I couldn't resist. I raided my husband's tool box for more shapes and colors. I used the different color chains, gunmetal, brass and copper, for the basis for different color schemes.
Now you can find a growing number of findings and stringing supplies in these same materials from beading suppliers. I used these and copper, silver and gold filled wire to connect everything together. I started making a necklace, some bracelets and earrings, shown here. Thus I created the beginning pieces of my new "Hardware Chic" style. They will be up on my Etsy and 1000 Markets sites soon. Lots of ideas are running through my mind and I'm trying to grab some time to make more.
I wonder who else out there might be using hardware in jewelry. I'd love to see. If you know of anyone using hardware in jewelry, I'd love to see any comments or links. Don't be shy.
In the past view years Roman glass from Afghanistan has been on the market. It is described as old shards coming from ancient sites in Afghanistan, reshaped and sold as beads or jewelry elements. Some of the glass certainly seems to be very old, not necessarily "Roman" but could possibly date from that period. Finds of glass that old have been excavated in Afghanistan. The encrustation on some of the pieces illustrated below do look authentic to me. The colors are also appropriate and the surface of these pieces looks consistent with old glass that has been prepared for reuse.
I am NOT an expert but have seen a lot of ancient glass over the years. However, I am also aware that there is a lot of new glass reputed to be "Roman" or ancient that has been created to look that way. I'll post a photo when I get my hands on a sample. The practice of recreating Roman or ancient glass has been going on for many years. The way new encrustation looks and adheres to the surface is very different from the ancient glass surface. The encrustation is interlocked with the surface of the glass underneath. The surface often displays notable iridescence.
Below are pieces that I believe is old glass, whether of the "Roman" glass type or later. You'll be able to see bubbles, striations and encrustation on the surface of the glass. Some samples show a rough irregular surface that would result when encrustation is cleaned off. The encrustation on these pieces compares favorably with authentic Roman glass. Others exhibit a faint iridescence.
A couple pieces, though similar in color and showing striations and bubbles, have a very shiny surface. These could be new pieces. Front and back and edges are shown of some samples. Edges can be seen in some of the group shots.
The technique used to make new glass look old was described to me briefly as follows: New glass is coated with fingernail polish, heated to a high temperature and then treated with acid. The encrustation resulting will be on one one side of the glass.
How accurate this is I have no idea. It does not have details on temperature and applying treatments.
This "necklace" is composed of recycled glass shards and portions of an ancient tile.
Glass courtesy of Afghan Tribal Arts.
Much as been written about ancient glass. Production and distribution of glass in the Roman period extended from Europe to Southeast Asia. It has also been recycled for reuse throughout that period as well as in modern times.
SEE THIS FOR GOOD COMPARISONS For glass with a provenence, see below. Because glass of this period was traded widely these glass pieces are good comparisons. While we may not always know the exact site, such pieces are authentic. There is a good supply of ancient glass as it was a common product in Roman times.
My first close encounter with lapis lazuli was when I was a curatorial assistant many years ago in the ancient Near Eastern Art Dept. at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There I saw the wonderful cobalt blue lapis lazuli objects from the Royal Graves at Ur. Some of these items are in the MMA, some in the British Museum, and some at The U of Pennsylvania Penn Museum, as well as what may remain in the museum in Baghdad. For example, the well known "ram caught in a thicket" at the Penn Museum and the bull headed lyre have very high quality lapis inlay. Lapis was imported in quantity to Sumer/Mesopotamia as early as 3500 B.C. and was used perhaps as early as 6000 BC The only probable source is Badakhshan,in Afghanistan.
I was very attracted to lapis lazuli and will never forget seeing it there. As a consequence I always wanted to have some. The most famous and still the best quality of lapis (short for lapis lazuli) comes from Badakhshan in Afghanistan. When I left the MMA to go to Iran to live and work I went via Afghanistan. Yes, backwards I know but it was a wonderful chance to get a peek at that country. The curatorial staff at the MMA knew my plans and needed a photo of a craftsman using a bow drill. When I arrived in Kabul I found a man sitting on the sidewalk in Chicken Street drilling holes in lapis lazuli beads with a bow drill. I took a lot of pictures of him drilling the beads. I also bought a matched sets of beads from him which I had made into earrings. They were a rich blue with typical gold pyrite sprinkles. I no longer have those pictures, too bad, as I sent them all back to the MMA .Indeed one was published. I wish I could find the reference. If I succeed I'll post it here. That was my first purchase of lapis lazuli.
Since that time I have acquired pieces of lapis in greatly varying quality. In these photos I hope you will be able to see the range of color in extremely blue lapis with little or no pyrite, calcite or other inclusions. The best lapis I acquired was over ten years ago. Most of this was in the form of small shaped beads. In the last few years I have seen very little of such pure color, and much of that is old stock. I know it still is being sold but I am told the AA ad AAA quality is so expensive and already spoken for that you rarely see it on the market.
This picture was taken of lapis lazuli polished rough in 2005 at the Silk Road Treasures booth at Gem Mall. Most of the lapis lazuli I have is from Afghanistan and has the typical matte surface. Nowadays you see it mostly with a high polish. Most of it has quite a bit of white calcite as well as the gold pyrite, and sometimes greenish inclusions. It also comes in a much darker blue. Now the bulk of the lapis lazuli from Afghanistan is sent to China for shaping and polishing. You don't see the matte finish often except that sold by a limited number of dealers, my friends among them, who acquire it from Afghan craftsmen in Afghanistan or Pakistan.
Shown from in order from top left to bottom right are:
High grade round lapis beads showing the range of color A necklace and earrings I created with an Afghan pendant, a bead strand and beads of high quality lapis High quality matte finished lapis carved beads Lapis beads shaped and polished in China Two strands of lower quality lapis beads, the top strand a gift from Iran, and below, a strand of lapis finished in China bought this year at the Tucson 2010 Gem Mall show Two strands of lower quality lapis beads, the top strand a gift from Iran, and below, a strand of lapis finished in China bought this year at the Tucson 2010 Gem Mall show Selection of lower quality beads and pendant, the latter showing the less valuable darker blue
The rough, and many of the shaped pieces are sold by the gram. The price of course varies by quality but a wholesale price of $.25 per gram is common for an average grade.
Lapis lazuli (lapis for short) is a rock, that is, a material composed of a number of different minerals. The blue color is mainly from the mineral lazurite. The large amounts of this is what gives the Afghan lapis its massive areas of outstanding blue. The other primary minerals from which lapis lazuli is composed are calcite and gold colored pyrite. Also present may be sodalite, hauyne, diopside, feldspar and more. The varying amounts and kinds of the minerals in the lapis affect the color of the lapis.
Lapis from other areas, primarily Chile and Russia, generally contain a higher proportion of white calcite and are not considered to be of the same high quality.
Lapis lazuli was used not only for shaped pieces and inlay in many different cultures, but was also ground into powder and used for makeup in ancient Egypt, and in paint pigments until it was replaced with a synthetic in 1828.
Typical Afghan Jewelry with lapis lazuli inlay and beads (top), Necklaces I created using freshwater pearl and Afghan lapis pendant, and Afghan lapis, carnelian and Afghan jade (serpentine)with Afghan pendant. (bottom)
The most common lookalikes include sodalite, a mineral closely related to and sometimes included in lapis lazuli, and dumortierite (denim lapis), a mineral, which is much harder than lapis lazuli.
History and mining: Excerpt from Peter Bancroft. Gem and Crystal Treasures (1984) Western Enterprises/Mineralogical Record, Fallbrook, CA, 488 pp. http://www.palagems.com/lapis_lazuli_bancroft.htm
A WEBSITE coming soon..well hopefully real soon I'm creating it on Weebly and am learning as I go. I'll have to make it live to finish a lot of the pieces, so when it does go up I'm sure it will be buggy. The website is for my company Deerwoman Designs, to sell items I have created in the past 10 years or so. At the beginning I will only put up a few test objects to check on how things work. If all goes well, I hope to add international sales as well.
The other sites where I have items for sale have not been productive lately, so I hope this will improve matters.
There's a new Facebook Connect widget here to connect so that you can see the photo galleries and the public parts of my page. There's also a Google Follow Me widget.
I have been planning some more posts on turquoise. These got delayed, but not given up on. I also plan to write a little bit about lapis lazuli as soon as I get the photos done. It is truly an amazing material and I love it as much as I love turquoise. I also had a wonderful time at Tucson this year visiting the booths of my Afghan friends, and of course just gazing at the wonderful displays, wishing I could buy a lot of what I saw. Above is a sample of what I did buy.
While there I also visited the Rings & Things booth at Holidome. I was lucky enough to meet Russ Nobbs there.
I was just reading in Colored Stone's latest online magazine that jewelry depicting bugs and other critters are becoming a big thing.So of course I have to put my two cents in. Here's my "Save the bees" necklace created in 2006, right around the time we first started hearing about colony collapse syndrome.
So also with other inspirations from nature. It has always been a source of creative ideas for me. here are two more nature inspired items. See more at my Deerwoman Designs Gallery at Artisans Market
