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Green Fuse Jewelry and Metal Art Designed by Felicia Parsons |
Materials: what I use, what I don't |
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Green Fuse Jewelry and Metal Art Designed by Felicia Parsons |
Materials: what I use, what I don't |
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First, the good: |
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These are the things I like to use in my creations, from metal to minerals and beyond! |
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Silver |
ALL my sheet and wire silver is 100% recycled!
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Why Buy American Stones? |
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As of 2009, all of my new stones are mined or collected in the United States. I think this is crucial for several reasons, the most important of which include:
1: preserving local economies and jobs 2: protecting the environment (many countries that mine and export gems have little or no environmental protections in place) 3: worker protection, no slave labor, no child labor (these practices are very common in other countries, particularly developing countries, that export large quantities of gemstones) 4: supporting democracy (many exploitative governments and corporations abuse their citizenry as well as their workforce, often in political systems that give no power to the people governed by them) 5: short supply chain (a large portion of the stones I buy were cut and collected by the person who sold them to me. That means they went through only one set of hands between me and the earth. It's nice to know exactly where these rocks came from and who has handled them, don't you think?)
Following are some of my favorite stones. You'll see them again and again in my designs! |
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Leland blue antique slag is found along the beaches of Lake Michigan, and dates to around 1875-1920. It is composed of part stone, part glass from the brief period when iron and copper ores were refined in Lower Michigan. The ores, which were mined in the Upper Peninsula, were sent downstate by freighter to the smelters. At the time, people foolishly believed that the hardwood forests growing in the area would supply a limitless amount of firewood for charcoal, which would in turn run the blast furnaces at the smelters. The forests eventually ran out of trees (they always do) and the smelting period ended as well. But for that brief period, the metal ores from the UP were melted in the huge furnaces in the mitten. The pig iron was separated from the slag -- a glassy waste product composed mostly of silicates and other minerals --- which was in turn dumped in Lake Michigan. (Handy! Not exactly environmentally brilliant, but if you think laws are lax now, you should have been around back in 1875.) Anyway, a lot of that so-called waste material has been washing back up onto the beach ever since. Today, the lucky beachcomber may still find slag on the Leland beaches. It comes in many colors, including black, green, purple, and, most rarely, blue. |
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This marvelous, freckled fellow is actually formed from the copper that stuck to the fire brick walls of the smelters in ore processing plants in Northern Michigan. Like the Leland blue slag above, it's essentially an antique cast-off from a bygone era. It winks at you without being super shiny, showing glittering specks of red tossed in among the cream-colored mosaic pattern of the fire brick chips that have been amalgamated into the metal. The smelters are no longer in operation, so each cab contains a little bit of the history of the Upper Midwest. Each stone weighs more like a chunk of metal. Which makes sense seeing as how metal is mostly what it is. |
| This is a fabulous stromatolite from the Mary Ellen Mine in Minnesota. Scientifically known as Collenia undosa, the microorganisms involved were likely to have been photosynthetic bacteria that were busily generating the oxygen that would ultimately create our atmosphere. All this was happening during the precambrian era (that would be over two billion years ago), sometimes called the “rusting of the earth” by geologists. |
| Morgan Hill Poppy Jasper is a famous, but increasingly rare orbicular jasper with red and yellow dots of "poppy flowers". It is a brecciated jasper, meaning it probably came from sun-dried and oxidized iron-rich clay. The cracks were filled in by other substances. Jasper is from the chalcedony/quartz group. Various minerals create the huge array of colors the compose the jasper family. |
| Other Stuff |
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lab grown
gemstones This is the most exciting development in gemstones since the crown jewels! Lab grown gemstones are molecularly indistinguishable from the mined variety. It takes a special machine to tell them apart -- the human eye can't do it. These are real gemstones, not glass, not simulations. They have consistently high color and flawless quality at a lower price. Growing gems in the lab means no mining and no abused miners. But most telling, lab grown gemstones are giving DeBeers nightmares. For more info: post-gazette.com |
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reclaimed
gemstones Reclaimed gemstones use the waste material from cutting and drilling stones to build "new" beads. Ground gemstone is mixed with resin and formed into highly-polished beads that look like the original stone but cost much less and salvage what would otherwise be thrown away. |
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vintage gemstones and beads I don't haunt estate sales and flea markets, but a lot of people do, and there are a lot of old beads and dismembered necklaces floating around waiting to be recycled into something new. These are some of my favorite beads to design with |
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Now, the bad: |
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Following is some information about some of the common jewelry materials that you'll never find in any of my work, along with some explanations about why not. |
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Pearls of Wisdom (or not) Recently, a gemstone supplier offered five free strands of cultured pearls as a promotional incentive to any of their customers purchasing a wholesale order. Pearls are literally so cheap these days that people are giving them away. Which means that finding a jewelry designer who doesn't use them, and use them often, is as rare as the pearls themselves used to be. Most people know that pearls, including mother of pearl and other shells, are an animal product. From a vegetarian or cruelty-free perspective pearls are a no-go. But they're also a dubious proposition from an environmental perspective. While pearl farming is generally considered less environmentally destructive than other forms of aquaculture, there are still concerns regarding over-harvesting leading to species depletion and disruption of aquatic ecologies. For an interesting article on the near-extinction of a mussel species in my own state of Minnesota --- where a pearl valued at $65,000 was harvested in 1902 ---- read this: (the relevant article is on page 16 of the pdf) http://www.pca.state.mn.us/about/pubs/mnereport/part_4.pdf
For more general information: |
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Coral -- Eternity in a
Grain of Sand Coral grows at a rate of .4 to 4 inches per year. Growing a coral reef takes hundreds or even thousands of years. Destroying them, sadly, happens a lot faster. Some say that coral can be harvested sustainably --- of course that would mean discontinuing practices such as large-scale cyanide poisoning of reef habitats. Others argue that, with environmental degradation, disease, and other threats, the global coral population cannot successfully withstand the additional stress of harvesting. In any case, coral, like pearl, is an animal product that cannot be considered cruelty-free or vegetarian. Also like pearl its low price does not reflect its high environmental and ethical cost. Third, again like pearl, coral is a uniquely beautiful material; combined with its cheap availability that makes it a very popular choice with jewelry designers. http://www.susanscott.net/OceanWatch2005/jun10-05.html http://www.american.edu/ted/coral.htm http://coralreefs.nbii.gov/portal/server.pt http://www.issues.org/17.1/bruckner.htm |
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Ivory --- You Mean They're Still Doing That? Yes, elephants, whales, walruses, hippos, even warthogs are still being hunted and poached. Game wardens in Africa are still being killed. |
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Diamonds are DeBeer's Best Friend
Diamonds are a multi-billion dollar industry. Purchased by the wealthiest among us, they are often mined by the poorest. One cartel, DeBeers, controls most of the market. The political and social ramifications are mind-bending and heart-rending. For more information, here are a couple of places to start:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/amnestynow/diamonds.html |
