Some more about the Impressionist chrysocolla (and its sisters).
A treasure trove:
Dusty's Find of a Lifetime
The fantastic Dusty found two slabs of chrysocolla amongst other treasures in a thrift store and had one cut into cabochons. She sent pieces from the same slab to a few different wireworkers. I thought it’d be fun to show several pendants in different styles that were not just from the same type of stone, but from the same original slice.
I wrote about my nympheas piece the other day.
Here’s the one of the pieces Dusty made from her fabulous find.
A lush profusion of color (and skill with spirals that I so envy) is a hallmark of Jennifer’s work. I mentioned her wirework in passing when I was showing off her wild bird photography, so I had to eventually do her jeweler side justice 🙂
Jennifer's Shades of Chrysocolla
And the third beauty by the always elegant Krista.
About the stone:
Chrysocolla is a copper silicate. Because of the copper its colors stay in the green/blue range with occasional black or brown inclusions. Unsurprisingly for a silicate it is often described as having a glassy luster. (Sometimes it’s unflatteringly described as greasy.) It is a relatively soft stone without much of a solid structure. It can be a pseudomorph, like pietersite, replacing other minerals that have been dissolved away. Chrysocolla is often associated with other copper ores like azurite, malachite and limonite.
(A variation found near Eliat in Israel is called Eliat stone, it is chrysocolla with malachite and turquoise.)
Trista's Malleable
Chrysocolla is most commonly found in Chile, Israel, Mexico, Peru, Russia, the American southwest and Zaire. It’s name comes from the greek words chrysos (gold) and kolla (glue) because it resembled the material they used to solder gold. (I don’t know what the ancients used for soldering, but color me curious…)
Magpie's Miscellany 