laurieopal

Off to Wiscon in the morning.  Really looking forward to seeing everyone.  Lucky that my friend Julissa is taking care of my studio.

Will have an archival print of the cover I made for Bloodchildren - Stories by Octavia Butler Scholars edited by Nisi Shawl in the Tiptree Auction.

I haven't been posting as much as I like this month because I've been so focused on finishing my new work for Wiscon.
When I make a lot of new work my time for everything else tends to shrink.

I've been working on this collection for along time.  I didn't realize how many new one of a kind pendants, I'd made until I had them all layed out together today when I was packing the jewelry.

The work includes:

A fossilized opal clam shell from when Australia was a sea, designed with coral silver branches and set  a ruby and an emerald.  I've had the shell in my collection for years and finally decided that I wanted to work with it in a design.  It's stunning.

A large Ethiopian mountain opal that's deep brown shot with green and vivid red.  The pendant design includes cinnamon diamonds.

A brilliant striped opal in a silver design that reflects it's inner patterns.

An astronomical with a Mexican opal as the planet and a cinnamon opal as its rotating body.  The opal matrix is brownish with a vivid center.

A fossilized coral that is black with leaf like golden patters in a silver coral setting with hematite with pyrite lodged in the coral.

A 19th century Venetian glass cabochon designed with a rose tourmaline and a pearl.   I've also had the antique Venetian glass cabuchon for a long time before designing for it.

A vivid orange and green Volga river chalcapyrite designed in black silver

A lace patterned lapis and azurite in a silver lace design.

And more.   I've really been working hard.

These are the two volga river chalcpyrites that I have been designing pendants for.

I just photographed an Ethiopian opal pendant. Plus two very different Volga River chalcopyrites that I'm planing to design as pendants. And finally, an astronomical pendant set with larimar and a blue diamond. I'd planned the larimar pendant for Wiscon but the first person who came to my studio after it was finished saw it and that was that.

It's been a long day and I've been carving wax a lot. Getting the photos ready to post pretty much finishes me up for my work day. They'll go up soon.

I've had a beautiful opal fossilized shell that's from millions of years ago when Australia was a sea in my collection. It's been sitting with a group of things I see every day for 15 years. To my surprise, I discovered that I wanted to create something with it more than I wanted to keep it personally.

I just finished carving the wax. It will be dark (not black) silver with a coral and opal cephalopod (time appropriate). The coral is set with a small ruby and a small emerald.

It feels really good to have made art with it.

This is an amazing opal triplet that I was lucky enough to find, set in gold with a diamond. It's from the collection of Rebecca Burgess. I wanted a very particular balance in the designto set off the stones.

I posted these thoughts last night on Body impolitic. Think some people will find interesting. Thephotos in this post are of war and its effects. They are disturbing. And the post is not for everyone.

I’ve been thinking about beautiful photographs of dreadful things for a long time. They make me viscerally uncomfortable. I’ll look at the front page of a newspaper and react positively to a beautifully composed photograph, and then I realize it’s of fighters shooting guerrillas and someone is dying in the corner of the photo and I react with quick anger. Not all of this kind of work is beautifully composed, but I’m reflecting on the work that is....