About Turquoise
… You can get very high end and very low end material from the same mine. The mine will rate their own material and price it accordingly. Historically speaking, turquoise that is bright or deep blue with no visible matrix has been the most valuable, such as Sleeping Beauty and Persian varieties. More recently, green turquoise has risen in demand and collectors prize stones that typify an excellent example of a specific mine or type of veining called spiderwebbing. American turquoise is seen as high quality, but has become scarce. Some well known American mines are now closed, mined out of turquoise permanently.
I started my turquoise journey at this time last year. I wanted to work with it, but didn’t feel I knew enough about it to really go all out, so I did some digging. As my search for stones progressed, I started to recognize the different mine names and link them with an image in my head. To solidify that, I did some drawings of the different types, trying to capture what made each one unique. There must be thousands of turquoise mines worldwide, and I have barely scratched the surface here, but I tended to come across these names when shopping for Turquoise cabochons in the current market, so these are the ones I focused on.
Turquoise is typically found between 3,000-8,5000 feet above sea level in dry, dessert climates. Turquoise forms triclinic crystals - three unequal axes, none of which intersect at right angles. A cross-section of these crystals can be seen in many varieties of turquoise, bordered by a line of the surrounding matrix. The matrix refers to any remnant of the host rock within the turquoise, and can resemble veins, splotches, or spiderwebs. Turquoise crystals form in limonite or sandstone. Iron-rich limonite creates dark brown markings in turquoise, while sandstone creates tan markings.
Turquoise mines can be small family owned businesses or huge corporations. Sometimes one company owns several mines and will market their material under separate names because they are distinct from one another visually. Sometimes a huge company will mine in several places and call all their material one brand-name. There is great variety of material coming out of each mine, in color, matrix, porosity, and quality. The mine will rate their own material and price it accordingly. Historically speaking, turquoise that is bright or deep blue with no visible matrix has been the most valuable. Sleeping Beauty Turquoise and Persian varieties are famous for this. More recently, green turquoise has risen in demand and collectors prize stones that typify an excellent example of a specific mine or type of veining called “spiderwebbing”. American turquoise is seen as high quality, but has become scarce. Some well known American mines are now closed, mined out of turquoise permanently. As a result, turquoise from Tibet, China, Egypt, Iran and Khazakstan have become more prevalent here in the US. Of all the turquoise sold on the current market, 75-80% is Chinese. Asian turquoises have a character all their own and are no less fascinating than their American counterparts. Less information seems available about the origins of some Asian turquoises, and with that lack of information comes suspicion about dying and other treatments left undisclosed. Generally I’ll refer to the Asian turquoises by their region and American turquoise by the name of the mine.
Persian Turquoise
Persian Turquoise can be an intense robin’s egg blue with no visible matrix or color variation and is considered of the highest quality. Images of Empress Farah, the wife of the last Shah of Iran, show her famous turquoise tiara, set with flawless sky blue turquoise cabochons in gold with diamonds.
Persian turquoise can also come in deep ocean blues with islands of pyrite, sometimes surrounded by a haze of deeper blue or green. The pyrite has a distinct metallic flash. The matrix of Persian turquoise appears generally less prominent, but at the lower end of the quality spectrum can be chalky white. The oldest and highest producing turquoise mine in the world is located in Iran, and has been continuously mined for the past 7000 years.
Tibetan Turquoise
Known for having a lot of character, Tibetan turquoise differs wildly from one cabochon to the next. It’s prominent dark and granular matrix often appears to have orbs of intense blue green afloat. At it’s higher end, Tibetan Turquoise can be deep blue green with a crisply spiderwebbed matrix of dark umber rivaling some of the most expensive American mines. At it’s lower end, it will need stabilizing to take a polish. Believing it to be good luck, Tibetans have favored turquoise above any other gemstone. The majority of Tibetans possesses some turquoise, either set in rings, bracelets, beaded necklaces or sewn directly into clothing.
Egyptian Turquoise/Sinai Turquoise
Discovered in Egypt over 7500 years ago, Egyptian turquoise ranges in color from deep dark cornflower blue to green. The matrix is a reddish brown that can look almost blurred compared to the crisp lines of the Chinese and Tibetan varieties. Bedouins living within Egypt are said to have secret family turquoise mines they use to create family heirlooms. The turquoise mines on the Sinai Penninsula are known to have supplied malachite and turquoise to the pharaohs. Sinai is one of the world's most important historical sources of turquoise, so adored was it that most of the supply from the mines in the southwest of the region are believed to be used up.
Kingman Turquoise
The Kingman turquoise mine is located in Arizona and has been in production since prehistoric North Americans first discovered it thousands of years ago. Research shows that the Kingman mine supplied an ancient Mayan turquoise boom in 1000 AD, exporting turquoise south to ancient Mesoamerica. With many different color varieties and a distinct watery yellow brown or black matrix, Kingman turquoise can range from an intense sky blue to olive green. The Kingman mine in northwestern Arizona is the largest turquoise mine in the United States. Kingman blue has become a color standard in the industry.
Chinese Turquoise
Turquoise use in China dates back to 1700 BC. While never as popular as jade until recently, Chinese turquoise comprises some of the finest specimens of spiderweb turquoise ever sold in the United States. The best natural Chinese turquoise is often withheld from the American market, making it quite rare and valued by collectors. Lower quality turquoise from mines in China accounts for about 80% of the stone on the U.S. market today, but it is often enhanced in color and luster and therefore tends to fetch a lower price.
Chinese turquoise can vary wildly in color and matrix. The highest end of this material is deep intense blue with crisp black spiderwebbing. Colors can range from blue to dark green to yellow with tan, dark umber or black matrix. Sometimes Chinese Turquoise is called “Hubei” Turquoise, but this can be misleading because not all Chinese Turquoise is from Hubei.
Golden Hills Turquoise
Golden Hills turquoise is from the mountains of Khazakstan. This distinctive cool blue turquoise is relatively new to the jewelry community, only introduced in 2014. It can have an almost lavender appearance, and is relatively durable amongst the turquoise varieties. It’s matrix is dark and prominent, often umber or red brown. Golden Hill turquoise crystals sometimes have a radial gradient, fading from light blue or white in the center to a more intense cool sky blue towards the edges.
Gold Canyon
Gold Canyon Turquoise is comes from a series of mines at the border of the US and Mexico, in Arizona and New Mexico. It displays a beautiful turquoise-blue color and a distinctive golden matrix. The matrix patterns vary greatly, making each stone unique; the golden color of the veining is a beautiful variation from the typical matrix colors of gray, brown or black. The high grade turquoise from this mine is rare and is considered both esoteric and valuable.
Sonoran Gold Turquoise
Sonoran Gold Turquoise is found in Sonora Mexico. The high grade material is a beautiful two-tone which fades from baby blue to lime green and features yellow spiderweb matrix. This turquoise is soft, so most of it is stabilized. Once treated, it is extremely durable. This material is relatively new to the industry. Unlike most turquoise, Sonoran Gold is not mined in veins but rather as individual nuggets typically found in clay deposits.
Damele Turquoise
The Damele is a small mine outside of Austin, Nevada producing a uniquely durable and famously yellow to lime green turquoise. The Damele mine produces a wide range of colorful material in yellows, golds, greens and blue-grays, often with very fine, tight spiderwebbing. This mine produces a very small amount of material currently, so much of the Damele turquoise sold presently is cut from older rough, mined decades ago.
Origin Story
Imagine you find yourself wandering in a secluded spot. Maybe a cave, maybe a distant mountain top, maybe a dusty attic in an empty house in a strange city on the opposite side of the world. Let’s pretend that while you are exploring in this remote and unfamiliar place you find a box. It could be peaking out of a hump of leaves at the top of a mountain trail, half buried in the sand at low tide, or in a dark corner of that far-away attic. You look around to see if there might be an owner to this box, but there is no one. Closer inspection reveals that it has not been opened in quite some time. Maybe it has never been opened since it was first shut, you guess. The latch, which resembles no latch you have ever seen but seems obvious enough in it’s function, is rusted shut. A buzzy feeling of adventure and mystery surrounds the box like a fog. Upon lifting it, you discover it’s considerable heft and hear the objects inside shift with a soft metallic clink, clink. Long dried stories of buried treasure rehydrate themselves in your mind. The mystery, both savory and unbearable, feels precious in itself...
Already peering over your shoulder in anticipation of some unseen threat to your discovery, you think it best to bring the box home where your privacy can be relied upon. Once there, a screwdriver is employed. The rusty latch comes away easily and nothing stands between you and the contents of the box except the lid, which you now notice is covered with writing engraved deep within the dark wood. Not only are the words unfamiliar, but the letters are more like glyphs. The single bold line of unintelligible text runs nearly the length of the box, as if in warning. You are not unmoved, but you are not stopping. Perhaps you will find out later what the glyphs mean, but now you are opening the box.
The contents are immediately recognizable as jewelry, and your heart leaps up to high-five itself. The glint of metal is silver. Or is it? You spot something that might be gold and another metal, lustrous and dark, glowing from within. It takes no special sensitivity to art for you to literally gasp at the opulent and alien treasures stowed inside. One might imagine sapphires, rubies, and emeralds; faceted and sparkling as if in a pirate’s tale, but not here. Your secret hoard contains colorful tableaus of swirled minerals set in dark metal, as if small precious paintings of opaque stone whose value was determined by metrics other than carats or clarity. Larger pieces that might have been bracelets or arm bands feature detailed weaving in patterns that look to come from a graceful and complex tradition - albeit one that entirely alludes you. There are a series of vessels in the box, hung from chains as if to be worn around the neck. They suggest a genie may appear, but a tentative rub reveals no genie. The longer you look at the collection, the more perplexed you are as to its origins. The items are in almost perfect condition, although some bear the light scuff marks of wearers long gone. The embellishment speaks not of any known culture or tradition, but an amalgam of curious craft traditions and mathematical themes that suggest a people about which you know nothing nor can make extrapolations about. It is neither modern nor ancient, eastern or western. Each relic you take from the box feels as tho it might have served as the final talisman of a great love story, or perhaps house a great curse. You could spend hours examining the striking details and puzzling motifs, but the elation of your find slips a little, like a cloud crossing in front of the sun, and you check to make sure that you are still alone.
Malachite: History and Uses
Malachite is copper based mineral that has been cherished by humans since antiquity and is still prized today for its unique and beautiful patterns of swirling green.
Malachite is a mineral found all over the world, including the U.S., Brazil, Australia, Mexico, Russia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It forms in limestone, above copper deposits, close to the surface of the earth. People have often used Malachite as an indicator when mining for copper. Malachite is essentially copper rust; albeit a rust that has been cherished for millennia.
Malachite in it’s raw, uncut, and unpolished state.
An impressive modern Chinese vase sculpted of malachite.
Malachite has played an important role in the adornment of royalty since antiquity as jewelry, vessels, and crushed pigment for eyeshadow and paint. Ancient Egyptians attached great meaning to the color green, believing it represented new life and fertility. They believed that their afterlife was an eternal paradise without grief or suffering and referred to it as “The Field of Malachite”. The word Malachite comes from the Egyptian word for the mallow plant “molokia”, whose leaves resemble the semi-precious stone.
Impressive malachite deposits in the Ural Mountains in Russia have been mined for more than 100 years. The famous “Malachite Room” at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg is perhaps the most striking use of malachite as a decorative surface, and it remains an expensive and stunning choice for interiors to this day.
A fireplace in the Malachite Room at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Because of it’s relative softness, malachite is most often made into earrings or pendants where it is safe from occasional scratches and dings. Malachite has long been believed to protect one from evil and has come to symbolize transformation and resurrection.
The Osiris Earrings, by Mackenzie Law at Edgeworth.
The Isis Earrings, by Mackenzie Law at Edgeworth
Maintain your malachite by keeping it away from acids, which will dull the polish.
Work with Me
Watch while I make a woven cuff!
This is the first time I’ve done a really long form video about one piece. I find it more enjoyable to watch someone else work in their flow without the narration, so this wasn’t meant to be a tutorial or anything like that. I have great memories of going to a living history museum when I was a kid, watching the blacksmith work always put me in a little bit of a trance.
I decided to speed things up in the interest of time…
I do not actually move that fast.
The Toggle Bracelets
I was inspired by this little group of stones to make some simple yet very special bracelets. The focus here was really on color and craftsmanship, so I decided to hand fabricate the clasps from some of my signature silver and palladium stripes, and let the stones do the rest of the talking.
The clasps had to be cut, weighed, and measured to make sure they balanced well with each individual stone. I hate it when the stone is so heavy that it always flops to the underside of the bracelet. That will happen less often with these.
I used two diamonds - one is a personal favorite 3.45 ct., rather mercurial teardrop yellow/amber diamond, and the other is a blacker than black diamond oval, 2.2 ct. I also picked two turquoise stones with watery black rivulets. Lastly, I included a labradorite because it was the perfect size and color to round out my little collection.
Studio Update: June 2021
This past month brought many new things to the studio, including a spectacular shipment of labradorite from Jaipur, despite COVID related delays. I have been hard at work trying to do justice to those lovely stones. The warmer weather has also inspired me to take on some lighter, more “everyday” feeling striped staples. From bar studs to hoops - I am really loving these airy originals, and am enjoying the process of making things on a small scale again after the larger efforts in labradorite. I love wearing a combination of the large and small scale together.
These groups (above and below) really showcase the rainbow of colors you can get from labradorite - these are all the same kind of feldspar. Taken at a slightly different angle I would have gotten a whole different rainbow. I like how they change with the light and seem to have a mind of their own.
Keep your eye out in the month to come for more of these lovely stones and some new weave patterns for silver bangles and cuffs, which I can never seem to get enough of when the weather is warm. Stack my arm full of silver and give me a glass of chilled wine and I’m happy to sit in the garden and watch the plants grow.
Be well friends! Send me a message if you need birthday gifts or milestone presents, I’m happy to help. See below for links to all the new One-of-a-kinds that joined the collection this month.
Measuring Cups for Matriarchs
From left to right: Smidgeon, Pinch, Splash, and Skosh.
When I was small, the ladies in my extended family loomed very large. Matriarchy is the word. As a kid, I never knew too much about where their knowledge came from, but there it was! It appeared that there was a right and a wrong way to do things. They knew about camping, baking and math. Some were into clothing and social graces. My mom knew exactly what sort of sunlight all the plants in her garden preferred and when they bloomed. They all seemed to have a cache of knowledge built up that they passed down as if everyone knew those things. You match your hat to your bag, and your nails to your lip. That's just how it is. You let the flour sink to the bottom of the pan, or there will be lumps in the gravy. Hydrangeas hate the afternoon sun. How much nutmeg in the cookies? Just a dash, Sweetie.
These women just knew how to get it done and get it done right. Hence the Matriarchy. This year for Mother's Day I wanted to make something that represented their wisdom as a little treasure. An heirloom to be passed down. Very few people know exactly how much a splash, a smidgeon, and a skoshe is... but Mom knows.
My sister (and my neice!) and my mom, modeling the measuring cups for me .
Outtakes.
Super high polish interiors on these, which should hold up nicely since the insides of the cups are so protected.
The Love Collection
It all began with the idea to make an atypical line for Valentine’s Day. The pieces that followed blossomed into a statement that I am proud to continue year round. Lunging as far from the saccharine as possible, I celebrate the infinite colors and combinations of love; the feelings of hurt as well as hope, conventional pairings and improbable partnerships. Whether you are single or coupled I hope you can find something here that speaks to your version of love and honors your place in it’s cycle. With a rainbow of stones and the widest angle view my experience will allow, I give you: LOVE
The Empress : Final Solder
Jewelers rely on color a great deal to help them know the temperature of things. It's really difficult to film this, but I managed to capture the colors and not melt my phone at the same time! You can see how both the flame and the metal have very distinct color queues.
Weaving a Lattice
I had this idea a while back that I wanted to make a really lightweight bangle that was strong enough to hold up to daily wear, but light enough to wear in the summer. I love the look of lace and wanted to get a similar ratio of negative to positive space. I figured it out!! Here’s a little video I made of the process. She looks like lace and acts like steel! Turn up the volume for adorable crafting noises.
A mercurial red/yellow diamond flashes its intricate cut and high polish against a backdrop of 18k yellow gold, backed by our signature stripes. This very special rose cut, pear-shaped diamond weighs in at 3.45 cts. A sterling silver cable chain and hand-fabricated toggle clasp (in those same palladium and silver stripes) completes the circle.
Diamond measures 8 x 11 mm.