Here’s what I’m working on at the jewelry bench right now!
Check out our Etsy store to support an independent artist and purchase Robert’s jewelry work! https://www.etsy.com/shop/GrindstoneMountain
Dec. 15, 2024 - I just finished this group of pendants made with cabochons cut from intergrown crystalline veins of copper familiy gemstones, mostly chrysocolla and malachite, in their copper oxide host rock. I love this stuff. The colors are almost unbelievably intense, like tones you usually see in the most vibrant modern paints rather than in natural gemstones. This is some of the highest grade chrysocolla that I've worked with. I'll be posting all of these to my Etsy shop over the next week.
Since I've been selling on Etsy, I've gotten better at photography and the website has begun to allow video to be added. So rather than making new jewelry in May, I've been going back through fully half of the 500+ items that I've posted, and am upgrading the image quality and adding video. I hope that you all enjoy the better pictures, and that they are helpful! Thanks, as always, to each and evey one of you for your support. (I've also started the early steps of a group of opal rings. They are a more difficult project, and take a while. I'll post that project when I turn my attention towards it fully, hopefully by the beginning of June.)
I finished making pendants with this assortment of ancient coins over several days in the second half of March, and all but 4 are listed on the Etsy page now. I didn't take a 'finished group' photo because I finished and added them individually to the site over a number of days instead of all at once.
I finished this group of lapis rings on March 12, 2021. I really like how this set came out. I used larger stones than I often choose.
The metal work is finished, and the rings have been pre-polished. They are ready for a couple of days of polishing and stone setting. March 9, 2021.
Next up, I'll be turning these 14 lapis lazuli cabochons into rings. I'm starting the project March 5th. If all goes well, these will be finished on the 12th of March, 2021.
The words 'Lapis Lazuli' translate from their ancient linguistic roots as 'Stone of Azure Blue.' The stone has been in use with such reverence for so long that the words in several languages evolved inseparable from the name of the gem, so that the gem itself is an adjective or even noun, the name of the the very concept of blue. Lapis Lazuli is not the color of the sky, the sky and waters are lazuli, lazur, azure... blue. And this makes sense, as there are few such vivid and stable hues in all of nature. Lapis was also what was meant in medieval uses of the word sapphire, from the Greek 'sappheiros' and Hebrew 'sappir,' until that word was borrowed, recently, to describe the stone we know by that name now. The material has been mined and used in jewelry and ornaments in the ancient Indus Valley, Persia, and elsewhere for at least 9000 years! It was used as a gem in King Tut's mask, colored walls and statues in early and classical Greece and Rome, and was crushed to make some of the finest and most expensive paints in the flourishing of Renaissance Europe. It was Michelangelo's blue in the Sistine Chapel sky. The symbolism of Lapis Lazuli is as broad and deep as it's history. Valuable, treasured, and occasionally sacred, in Asia, Africa, and Europe alike, it has been a symbol of ancient Annona, the goddess of love and war, Maat, the Egyptian goddess of truth, and was, for several hundred years, a near requirement in depictions of the Christian Mary, giving identity to the figure in much Byzantine and Renaissance art. It has, for at least a couple thousand years, been associated with luck, warding off the 'evil eye,' and in medieval Europe, was said to cure anger and stupidity. Would that it could, the world would be less blue by benefit of such an azure boon. But here, have your own, and happily wear it! You'll be in good company of goddesses and kings, of Mary, Maat, and Michelangelo! I've just finished the final steps of work making 14 new high-grade Lapis Lazuli pendants, and they are all now available in the Etsy store at: https://www.etsy.com/shop/GrindstoneMountain
The metal work is finished on the remaining lapis pendants, and I'm getting ready to set the stones.
The metal work for the first 4 is finished, the pieces are oxidized, and I'm getting ready to start polishing.
Starting the metal work.
I'm going to turn these 14 lapis cabochons into pendants.
Once jewelry work projects one this page are finished, I’ll put them up on the Etsy store for sale, and will post a picture of the finished work on the ‘Finished Jewelry’ gallery page. There should be a link below, or you can get there from the website’s home page.
Better yet, you can support my work by shopping!