Fire agates!!! When I saw my first real fire agate, my first reaction was, “that looks like chewed up bubble gum.” But, as you look into these stones a little closer, they have a definite appeal with tiny bubble shapes with glistening color shifts from red to green.
Most of these agates pose a challenge for the designer as they tend to have a bumpy irregular shape. But, when you carve one of these, you will know why the lapidary had to carve it into such an odd shape. To maximize the most of the fire (play in color) and to give the bubbles shapes the best optical effects you end up chasing microscopic layers, following their bubbly shapes. This leaves you with an odd shaped cab.
I buggered up my first three cabs. The target layers are microscopic, and you want to shoot for the green and red layers to maximize those colors. So, you can’t just plow through it with a heavy-duty grit, because you will loose the layers completely when you remove more material with the polish. You have to gently remove tiny layers with a very fine diamond paste, preferably using a wooden bur on a flexshaft. So that when you reach the layer, you just have to hit it with some cerium oxide, and you’re finished. And, unless you are a very experienced carver of these agates, you have to guess at where you will find these target layers. I just kept cleaning it off and looking closely. It is definitely tedious work.
Fire Drop; sterling silver, ocean jasper, and fire agate
With this agate, I tried my best to keep it fairly round. I knew approximately what I was going to do with it when finished. Here, I have cabbed this ocean jasper into a teardrop shape. I them bored a hole and tapered the hole to set the agate into it. Then I epoxied the agate in place from the back. The metalwork is riveted in place to frame the agate. I kept the framework fairly simple. The stones were the focus of my attention on this one.
I liked the play on the names of the stones, ocean and fire. The jasper also has this textural look and colors of an aerial photo of the Earth. According to many ancient folklores, fire was originally dropped to the Earth for mans discovery. The indigenous people of the Puget Sound area told of a raven that was tricked into dropping the fire, and Prometheus was in the midst of tricking Zeus, when he dropped fire. I love these similarities in lore throughout the world. It is these similarities and love of story that helps bind us as human beings.
In the picture above, the pendant is pictured by itself; however my girlfriend and bead goddess is going to string this one up with some bronze freshwater pearls. This should add even more to this symbolic dichotomy between water and fire.
Thanks for looking.
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