Commission and connections

 

Many of us carry bits and pieces with us as we go through life - including stones. I carried one such stone for probably 60 plus years. My memory of it was that it was found by my prospector grandfather and given to me as a young one probably because I had shown interest in it. Over the years I gave it a clean, ground rough edges off it and wonder if there was anything else I might do with it apart from carry it forward because it connected me with my grandfather. It was not a precious stone in monetary terms; and had flaws in it. I understood it was a piece of Chrysoprase.

Last year Fiona and I commissioned Lindsey Gallacher to make a pendant for Fiona from a flake of Scottish stone that we thought connected us to a place and events. If you check out Lindsey's site you will see she does beautiful work with stones that connect people to place and people.

Fiona and I decided to take the Chrysoprase stone to Scotland this year and commission Lindsey to make a pendant from the stone so that I could gift it to my niece to make another connection - to my grandfather and myself. As you can see from the opening photo Lindsey did a great job making the pendant - 20mm in diameter - with flaws and all. I love the swirls and almost green moonlike image that has emerged.

After cutting the stone there were four corners left. Fiona suggested that we might ask Lindsey to make four small pendants or charms (1cm diameter) for my four young grand nieces. The resulting four pendants are in the photos below. The group of three are for three sisters.

All that is left of the original stone are small fragments - below. These will be gifted with the five pendants.

Lindsey's skilful work has enabled me to pass this stone on with the links to a  my prospecting grandfather. Maybe the pendants will continue to carry forward family connections for another 60 plus years!!!!