Purple Rain

Purple Rain: Sterling and .999, labrodorite cabs, beads, sugilite cabs, faceted amethyst, and amethyst beads.

When I started the layout for this piece, I knew it was going to be a challenge to finish by Mardis Gras.  I slid in just in time.  Purple and green was the idea, and the song, “Purple Rain was the inspiration.”  But, that was 14 cabs and 44 hand-cut beads ago, back when I still had fingerprints.  14 faceted 2mm amethysts, 10 sugilite cabs, and four labrodorite cabs set inside the sectionals, make up this piece, and the beads that weren’t cut by me, were selected from genuine gemstone strands absconded from Lora’s vault.

sketch, rough, and metalwork

The idea was to mix the purple with the green and blue flashy labrodorite.  Labrodorite conjures up a magical feeling to me.  It is always changing colors in the light, with shifts in flash and luminescence, making it a bear to photograph, arrrg!  And, the labrodorite, when not flashing looks so dead and waxy on film.

I envisioned this to be about the new changes, that something different in the air.  Lora had suggested using the song “Ebony and Ivory” as inspiration for this piece, but when I got home I started going through my albums to find that old song, and ran into this Prince song.  I put it on and realized that it was more about now than yesterday.  When I remember back on the 80’s, it’s not all about bad hair and plastic pants.  For me, it was about my first car, my first girlfriend, and my first Mardi Gras.  But, today Mardis Gras has new meaning after Katrina and a change in concepts concerning race here in the Deep South after Obama.  A sober amethyst and sweet sugilite purple, majestically painted in stone, with the mysterious labrodorite greenish blues with flashes of yellow, green, and sky blues.  The metal has been etched with patterns inspired by entopics, with a rain of purple trickling down into the pools of swamp-water infected with a deep magical glisten with the color of gators, incantations, voodoo dolls.

Close up of beads

Behind the fake plastic bead culture of parade watchers and Bourbon Street tourist traps, behind the plastic cups filled with sugar and cheap rum are the men and women coming together in a time of celebration, carnival - just before we all take to our fasting, abstaining, preparing for a new summer of faith.  Masks magically transforming the dancers.  The drums incite the inner beasts.  The women adorned in festival costumes, heavily cleavage, pulsing heartbeats throbbing in their exposed necks, sultry.  And, prayers asked to release all of the human sin ticked off on jade and amethyst beads of the rosary.  Carnal knowledge is passed around the waves of bodies like a bad rumor, only to be hidden in a deeper magic.  I hope to have invoked the spirit of “Purple Rain” with this piece.  And, I only want to see her wear it, beneath the purple rain.  If you know what I’m talking about, just raise your hands :o)

close up

Tagged as: Add new tag, Lapidary, Musings, necklaces, Silversmithing