dem stones, dem stones, dem dry stones....

While I was photographing jewellery recently, I also took shots of some of my treasured stones which haven’t found their way into jewellery, and at risk of boring you into a coma, I thought I’d show you some of them today.

But first a bit of background info………….
When I was 8 (1962, do the maths!) I had a friend who was much older (her name was Sally, she was a very talented artist, at that stage about 18 I guess) who was one of our neighbours in Harare, but moved to Zambia, and she sent me a bundle of stones in the post. Thus was born a passion for geology which has stayed with me ever since. I even did Geology as a major at University, although I never finished my degree.

From the time my interest was sparked by that parcel, I avidly collected stones. Zimbabwe was a great place to pursue such a hobby, because it is extremely rich in minerals and gems, so it was a happy hunting ground for me. Over the years, I tortured my poor father by insisting on loading his car with rocks at virtually every stop on every journey, and the family became accustomed to travelling with their feet surrounded by my treasures!

When I was in high school, I organised my collection into a cabinet that dad made for me, and entered it into the Young Scientist’s Exhibition, where it won an award.

However, for many years we had a bit of a nomadic existence, first with my trips to South Africa for University, and my parent’s frequent moves from house to house, and later as Max and I got married and moved frequently during the war, and later emigrated to South Africa, finally settling in Port Elizabeth. Throughout this time the heavy and bulky collection was hauled around in boxes from place to place, treasured but gathering dust. Finally when we settled on the smallholding, I revived the display, and they lived in a cabinet for a while.

By this time (mid 80’s) my son Ian was best friends with Vaughn, who I mentioned in the BLING post, and Vo had a consuming passion for geology from an early age. We used to bore everyone to death raving about some nondescript little brown rock, which nevertheless held endless fascination for us rock-hounds.

To encourage him in his interest, I weeded out just 1 or 2 real favourites from my collection to keep, and gave Vaughn the rest. He subsequently added to it throughout his teen and University years, and now has a really spectacular and comprehensive collection.

He is married now, and at the moment he and his wife Vicky are also doing the nomadic thing as he pursues his Geology studies around the world, but hopefully one day they will be settled and in a position to display the collection as it deserves.
Just so you can put a face to the name, here is Max reading a speech written by Ian at Vaughn’s 21st, with Vo looking all bashful next to him. Because Ian was flying somewhere in Darkest Africa at the time, and couldn’t be there, we printed his face on the back of the speech, so that it would seem like he was there as Max delivered it.

The reason I am mentioning Vaughn (apart from the fact that I miss him and thought I’d introduce you to my other son!) is that he is responsible for giving me some of the following stones.

So here are a few of my non-jewellery treasures…………..

Alexandrite is now very rare and hard to find. Since I was a little girl, I have wanted one, because I was intrigued by this page in one of my books….
I found the idea of a mineral that changes colour depending on the light source so fascinating. Anyway, a couple of years ago, as a goodbye gift when he went overseas, Vo gave me a piece of Alexandrite! It is in its raw state, so the colour shift is not as dramatic as when it is facetted.
It is also quite small (about 4-5 mm diameter) so very hard to try and photograph, but when enlarged you do get the idea of the green showing through the purple in daylight, and the redder purple in tungsten light.

Flourite, fluorspar. This mineral has a cubic crystal structure, and comes in a wide range of colours from yellow through to purple. When it is purple it is called Blue John. I have always adored crystals, because when you stand on the brown solid earth, it is so amazing to imagine hollow caverns under your feet, lined with colourful translucent crystals in perfect shapes.
Here is a cluster of very pure quality crystals,
and a less pure but large single crystal.

Some crystals are not particularly rare, or perfect in shape, quartz is found in vast areas and is a major component of rocks like granite, but what makes this piece special is that it contains inclusions of native copper (copper in its metallic state.) Also sometimes the excitement of finding a special piece and picking it up yourself makes it special to you (as opposed to buying a specimen from a rock shop.)

Max and I spotted this one near the dam wall of Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe, on the first trip we took back there after we had emigrated to South Africa, so it is also quite sentimental for us.

And here is another piece of quartz, with an aqumarine crystal embedded in it.

As you know, after the bling post, the thing I am the most passionate about is Opals. In my jewellery I have the black Australian opal, but none of the paler milky opals. When Vaughn went to visit his gran in Australia, he got this one for me.
Even in its raw state, the play of light and shifting colours are clearly visible, you can imagine how it would come to life if polished.

Another very special opal is the Mexican fire opal, this one was given to me by my step-dad, Aubrey, who also has a lovely collection (in fact he is a magpie, sorry, I mean collector of note, antiques, crystal, coins, stamps, old firearms, silver, porcelain, clocks, you name it …..)

By coincidence, opal also happens to be my birthstone, which is cool. The other one is Tourmaline. This mineral usually occurs in needle shaped crystals, and is commonly black, but there is also gem quality in blue, green and pink. The most wonderful one is watermelon tourmaline which, as you might guess, is pink in the centre and green on the outside.
I love this piece of quartz with needles of tourmaline embedded in it.
Another treasure from Vaughn and his wife Vicky is this piece of volcanic lava. It was collected at great risk to life and limb, in South America, when they were very honoured to be given permission to hike to the rim of an active volcano. It erupted while they were there, raining down rock and lava, scary stuff but their photos are spectacular!

Then there is this nondescript looking rock… nothing fancy, but its claim to fame (and a place in my display cabinet) is that it is from Antarctica, which as you probably know by now is my dream destination.

I showed you my blue tiger’s eye ring and pendant the other day…. I have 4 types of tumbled tigers eye… clockwise from bottom left, golden tiger’s eye is the well known one, blue is called Cat’s eye, red is called Hawk’s eye, and there is also green tigers eye.

Finally, if semi-precious stones interest you, and you ever find yourself in Capetown, there is a shop called the Scratch Patch which you would love…. The whole floor is literally covered in tumbled stones like this, and you pay for a container that you may fill, you sit amongst them and scratch for ones that appeal to you… great fun!

Bling!!

I must confess, when it comes to all that glitters, I am a total magpie. So, after my little rave about my favourite gemstones yesterday, I decided to share some of my odd assortment of magpie items with you.

I have always been a Silver girl, gold does not suit me or appeal to me, and also I am very big boned, dainty jewellery looks silly on me, so since I first started wearing jewellery, I have always gone for chunky silver styles.

I also don’t particularly like the traditional facetted precious stones, they have always seemed hard and cold and clinical to me. So Max has got off pretty lightly over the years, no glittering diamonds and expensive gold for this girl!

When we got married, I elected not to have a diamond engagement ring, but to rather have a plain chunky white gold ring, that would go with my silver jewellery. (White gold is an alloy of platinum, gold and silver, with different ratios depending on whether it is 9 or 18 carat.)

At one point about 25 years ago, I lost it, and when I had it valued for a replacement, I was shocked at how much its value had increased. At the time we got married, Platinum was worth way less than gold, but that has changed, it is now much more valuable than yellow gold, and because it is such a big chunky ring, we were madly underinsured. So I got a silver ring as a replacement, which I wore for the next 3 years. Then, at the place Max was working, security became an issue, and they bought a metal detector. Max brought it home and tried it on some bags of clay that were waiting behind our shed for re-cycling (I was a studio potter at the time and we lived on a smallholding outside town.) Sure enough, one of the bags started beeping, so we gently broke up the lumps of dried clay, and there was the missing wedding ring, I was so ecstatic to get it back!)

Over the years I have acquired an odd selection of jewellery, none of it particularly valuable in monetary terms, but each one special to me on its own merits, or because of the people and stories attached to them.

Opal has always been a favourite of mine, all opals are stunning, but my absolute favourite is the Black Australian opal, with its intense rich colours that shift and play as you move it in the light. When I was 21 my dad found this ring in an antique shop in Harare. Because the opal had a crack in it, the ring was only Zim $25. (It is meaningless to even try and equate that to current values of Zim $, when most guys are now earning at least a million a month….but that is a sad story for another day!) To this day it is my most treasured ring. Look at some of the wonderful colours that glow from it when you move it around……….

I recently found an art deco pin that has black opals put together in a mosaic. It is in a horrible setting, and I am soon going to have it made into a pendant, aren’t the colours wonderful?

Another favourite is moonstone, I love the blue shimmer of these against the simple silver settings.

This is a less well known stone, although at first glance it is similar to the moonstone. It is a feldspar usually found in Scandinavia, called Labradorite.

At some angles it is just a boring looking grey stone, but it has fault lines running through it, and at the faces of these the light refracts differently, so that, as the light catches it at certain angles, it shoots out a blue glow. The geological term for this phenomenon is schiller.

My friend Julie, knowing my love of these stones, spoiled me rotten last year and gave me this stunning pendant for my birthday, it is one of my favourites, and I wear it often.

Looking at my collection, I have a couple of very different pieces from my mom, and I realise she was probably responsible for my unconventional taste in jewellery, although I wasn’t aware of it until recently. These were designed by her, and she had them made up when I was about 1 or 2.

The stones are blue tiger’s eyes (also known as cat’s eye.)
Over the years she lost one of the earrings, so when she left me these, I had the remaining one made into a pendant.

Another of her designs is this lapis lazuli. These days, genuine lapis is very rare, and there are a lot of fakes around, but this is the real McCoy. I love the simple setting.
You will notice that practically all of my stones are cabochon (rounded) rather than facetted. I am drawn to the soft organic forms.

This Amethyst really appealed to me because it is the only time I have ever seen a stone like this, with a rounded cabochon top, and faceting underneath. The result is an interesting play of light, but softer than if the hard edges were exposed on top. It was a pin, made in Israel in the 70’s, but I seldom wear pins, so I had the bars of the pin rounded to form a ring.

This stunning piece is an Art Nouveau brooch/pendant, and it was given to me by my godmother who turned 81 this year, and is a delightful person and a real character! She is a very successful artist who is still doing sculpture that many people 40 years younger would struggle to produce.

She bought it on a trip to Israel many years ago, in Jaffa, Roman glass.

I have an honorary son, called Vaughn. He has been Ian’s best friend since they were little guys, and got up to all sorts of mischief together. I’ll tell you more about Vaughn (AKA Vo or Weasel) tomorrow, but for now I will show you this turquoise ring. Genuine Turquoise is hard to find these days, and unfortunately the market is flooded with fake stones, made by injecting dye into magesite, which is a common white mineral that has similar looking veins in it.

Vo found a genuine Turquoise, and polished it himself, and gave it to me as a gift, so it is very special to me. I went to a friend and talented jeweller, Madz, who made this ring for me. Her husband David did the scroll design on the sides, which I love.

Another piece made for me by Madz is this pendant. I was given the mock tanzanite, and decided to soften the facetted stone by surrounding it with these lovely pearly mussel shells.

An unusual pendant is this Pietersite one from Namibia.

Max bought it for me as our 25th Anniversary present, when we visited the Mineral museum in Swakopmund. If you are even remotely interested in stones this is an essential place to visit. It houses, among other things, the world’s largest crystal, which is gob-smackingly amazing. Pietersite is a very rare mineral, found in only one small place in Namibia. It is related to tiger’s eye, but has a unique composition.

Finally, not blue or glitzy, but I love malachite, and this ring is an old favourite of mine that I got shortly after we moved to PE in 1978, and as you can see from the tatty state it is in, have pretty much worn to death since then.

I must confess that, with such a collection of beloved stones, I often battle to choose which to wear, so I just wear lots simultaneously, and frequently walk around looking like a mobile Christmas tree. Oh well, who cares, after all, I am an eccentric artist aren’t I?

Valley of Desolation

Right, we finally get to the stunning Valley of Desolation which I have been promising for absolute ages to show you.

It is a mountain overlooking Graaff Reinet, and perhaps I should have shown you this first, as there are lovely views of the town from the top, and it would have helped you to get your bearings. However, the cool thing about blogger is, you can read the posts in any order that suits you, so feel free to jump around! By the time you have read this, and the previous 2 posts, you will have a good overall idea of the area.

We arrived from the North, after going through 2 mountain passes (the same ones which were covered in snow 2 weeks ago!)

Just on the outskirts of Graaf Reinet is a large lake, and if you turn right, skirting around the water and then up the mountainside,

you get to a spectacular view of a rugged valley.

The mountain is of Dolerite, a volcanic (Igneous) rock. You can clearly see, in places, the amazing patterns left by swirling streams of lava surrounding boulders. As it weathers the dolerite goes a rusty brown due to the high iron content, but when the surface chips off you see the dense black rock inside.

Because it is so hard, it remains relatively un-weathered compared to the softer surrounding rocks, so as they are eroded away, it remains, jutting out in spectacular formations.

This little conical hill is a classic formation seen in this area, where alternating layers of dolerite lava flows,

with softer rocks in between, weather and conical hills form with a hard flat dolerite layer on top, and ridges down the sides showering the layering.

If you click on this you should be able to read up a bit about the area.

A German tourist kindly offered to take a photo of us together at the cliff edge.

On the edge of the cliffs the wind is quite gusty, I really had to brace myself against it in order to look down on the deep valley. Max, who does not have a head for heights, was clucking like a nervous hen while taking this picture of me,

but the view was worth it!

There is another viewpoint with 360 degree views, and a topograph, overlooking the town. When we arrived we had a great time locating all the mountain ranges and geographical features shown in all directions.

While we were there it became apparent that the sun was going to go down in just the right spot, so we had to wait to capture it. Of course it was a great opportunity to kill time taking photos........
We started playing with the wonderful zoom capabilities of our camera. (To be accurate Max's camera, which he generously shared with me, and I shamelessly hogged! Perhaps it was due to this expedition that he ended up buying me my own in self defence!)

Here is the view of the town as seen normally,

here a bit closer. Again, the unusually wide ox-wagon friendly streets are evident.

and here is a real close up of the most notable landmark in town, the huge Cathedral.

and you can see the shadow of the mountain creeping progressively over the town while we waited. It was worth the wait.

On Saturday we looked at the art of Pierneef, so let's end this journey with his painting of the Valley of Desolation, painted when the early morning light was glowing in front of rather than behind it. Cheers!