Really a fascinating subject, and I'd be interested in learning more.  I think you have found a niche market that is unique!

Looking at the beads/stones, it's interesting that they almost look like obsidian (on my monitor), not like a petrified wood.  Do you know what kind of wood it was?

Hi, I can see why one would think from the pic that the stone is obsidian or black onyx.  One really has to see first hand and feel jet to understand how this mineraloid is an organic gemstone that is different from rocks like black onyx, black jade, or volcanic glass like obsidian.  It IS a petrified wood, but more in the fossil sense.  Most people are familiar with petrified wood that has been silicated (turned to quartz-jasper).  Fossil wood can also opalize and be replaced by other minerals causing a tremendous diversity in fossilized wood.  We don't even think about all the fossil bio-mass that we pump into our cars all the time! 

Most paleo-botanists believe that jet is about 60 million years old and most likely fossilized  "Araucariaceae trees,  a very ancient family of conifers. They achieved maximum diversity in the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, when they existed almost worldwide. At the end of the Cretaceous, when dinosaurs became extinct, so too did the Araucariaceae in the northern hemisphere." (from wikipedia).  The araucariaceae trees can still be found today in some forms, the most well known being the "monkey puzzle" tree.  There are some paleobotanists that believe that  jet is  from an ancient tree similiar to today's cypress trees.  That's the lesson for today!

I keep working on the mourning jewelry, especially the "broken" jet heart beads.  here's a series of centerpiece beads temporarily strung with one red bowlerite bead for contrast....

...next I'm gonna work on inlaying some focal stones in the center of heart beads.  Thanks for looking and I'm still curious if anyone out there ever makes or collects mourning & memorial jewelry!

 

I don't make mourning jewelry but I have some of the real old kind that was actually a black container, sort of like a locket, in which a lock of hair of the deceased was kept. 

The reason jet differs from other fosilised wood and is limited in disribution is the trees spent years in large bogs causing them to change in structure to something like bogwood before it became fosilised

 

Colin

Of course, Whitby jet is by far the highest quality.  It is easy to tell one from another when you know how.  (I wish I could remember - you rub them on some emery paper - Whitby jet, I think, rubs a brown mark, others a black one - but I might be mistaken, it could be the other way round).  One can walk along the beach at Whitby and find jet on the beach, and certainly dig chunks out of the cliff - but large pieces are unknown.  Whitby is a really nice place to visit....  great fish and chips too!

Hi David,

I think this is a very interesting topic. I think it is great that you have used your art as an outlet for your grief. I too have used my art to work through many emotions.

The piece I am submitting was made hand-in-hand with a poem I wrote about the day my family was notified that my mother in law was in the hospital and she was going to pass away suddenly. This piece took me two years to finish, not for its complexity, but I had to work through the emotional process. This is about our trip to the hospital. This poem is printed on the back of the piece .
The entire piece is hand carved in Silver Metal Clay including the wilting flowers and dancer. There is a syringe set blue sapphire in the dancer's hand (she loved the performing arts) and dangling briolete blue sapphires (tears). The citrine (hazy sun) is bezel set and the entire piece is finished with a double strand of pearls, blue swarovski crystals, citrine, sterling accents and a handmade clasp.

Here is the poem.

The Mourning Sky
As we drove, I clearly remember the mourning sky.
Thin clouds partially
blocked the rising sun.
Pale and yellow was its hazy glow
struggling to brighten the horizon.
No birds, no song, just deafening silence, as our minds race and speed along a road never traveled.
We arrived to a place we wished not to be, and waited to hear words we wished not to be uttered.
A beautiful flower has wilted
and wishes to return to the earth.
No time to prepare.
No time for long good-byes.
The dance is over, and it is time to return to the morning sky.
(In memory of Gail Gage)

 

 

 

 

I totally appreciate this thread and a chance to connect on another level.
~ Holly

http://www.HollyGage.com
Celebrating the beauty of life and nature with a gentle blend of art and soul
 

Holly,

Your beautiful, touching poem left me in tears, and your magnificent piece left me speechless.

Thank you so much for sharing.

 

 

Thanks, livewire (love your handle) 

~ Holly

http://www.HollyGage.com
Celebrating the beauty of life and nature with a gentle blend of art and soul
 

Wow, all of the pieces are beautiful & evocative.

When my dad passed 5 years ago, I went thru a rough time.  I had read the book "A String & a Prayer" about making your own prayer beads.  So I decided to make a mouring necklace for him/for me.  Sorry, I don't have a photo at the moment.  But I used a gauzy black ribbon, threaded a medium size heart of rippled blue dichro for the focal, & then strung SS & glass hearts, tear drops, & other symbols of things about him as a person.  I would have used some bits of mementos if I'd thought of it at the time.  I wore it off & on for over 6 months.

A friend just lost her mother about 3 weeks ago, & when I went over to visit, there was another neighbor there whose mother had also recently passed.  I'd brought a box of riibbon w/ me & I tried to explain to them that I'd be willing to make them pieces w/ their own family elements.  I got kind of cryptic looks back, so I'm not sure if they "got it" or not.  It's OK, I offered...

Good Mourning Jewelryfolks,  I really appreciate the responses members have posted.  I continue to process a lot of my own stuff as I work with my jet and my grief.  I guess I'm one of those craftspeople whose spirituality and whose work are so intimately intertwined.  I've never really felt a "committment" to working in one kind of material or medium in my making of focal beads.  I've worked tanzanite to bowlerite, But this thing with the jet is different.  I've NEVER bought this much of one kind of material, and it's exciting and daunting to walk into the studio and see 250 pounds of Tennessee jet and a few scattered blocks of Siberian rough dominating areas of my studio.   This mineraloid material is so loaded with metaphor all on it's own.  So I feel like I'm embarking into the heart of darkness in my work, into uncharted territories outside my comfort zone.  I don't know if it's because it's an organic gemstone, or because it's condensed metamorphosized bio-mass, or because it's got that black cloud of mourning dust around it, or because it's so soft to work and feels different, or because it's one step above a fossil fuel, but this stuff is making my head and heart spin. 

Anyhow, before I share a bit more, I wanted to respond to some of the others comments....

Jilla:  Lockets and jewelry with hair of the deceased were common mementos in the 19th and early 20th century.  Look up "hair jewelry" on eBay and narrow your results to "antique" category and you'll be amazed at the Victorian stuff.  I found a bag of hair in my Nana's closet after she died and  it was long locks of my dead mothers, grandmothers, and great grandmothers & great aunts hair!  A friend and I made dreadlocks and extension out of about half of it and sewed it into my should length hair.  I wore it for 6 months and it was powerful ju-ju!  I called it my "matrilineal HAIR-itage" since it was 4 generations of hair on my head.   It weirded some folks out, but being an orphan, it made me feel connected to my family and ancestors, which was comforting.  That's what I think the whole point of mourning and memorial jewelry & ornament are all about.

 Shiner-Colin:  Bogwood is, from what I understand, a more brown and younger form of "jet".   But you're correct that jet is forests of wood that were first submerged underwater before being covered by sediment and transforming under millions of years of heat and pressure.  Evidently there is "hard" and "soft" jet, although they're supposedly both similiar in hardness and appearance, one forms under fresh water and one forms under salt water.  Not sure which!  Have to go back to my notes...

Nick:  to say that Whitby "is by far the highest quality" is a bit subjective.  I've actually only cut American jet from several locales (Tenn, Penn, & NM, I think...) and Russian jet from a mine east of Lake Baikal (North of Mongolian border).  The American leaves a black streak, the Russian a brown.  The American seems harder, cleaner and with more conchoidal breaks while the Russian stuff is softer and more consistent but with some minor pitting.  Of course I'm talking about cutting them and looking at them up SUPER close, one next to the other.   The average person is unlikely to see the difference.  I'd love to cut some Whitby jet, but the only pieces of rough I've ever seen have been on eBay recently and the guy's prices are a bit steep for what he's offering, IMHO.  Maybe I'll contact him and see if he's up for a jet rough swap!  Whitby jet is only available, as you say, in very small quantities and from beachcombing.  The Romans were mining it 2,000 years ago and the Victorian craze for jet seems to have depleted and serious source of Whitby jet, even for the hobbyist.

Holly:  What a beautiful poem and gorgeous pendant you did in memory of your mother in law.  I was very moved.   Thanks so much for sharing.

Pisces:  I think including beads and elements that symbolized your dad in the necklace you made in his memory is great.  I have some little charms that belonged to my mom and grandma and sometimes I just put one of those on one of my chains as a kind of an "accent prayer", along with one of my broken heart jet centerpiece beads.

 
One of the things I like about jet the most is that it's light weight lets me make BIGGER focals than one would expect!  Like this big wedge bead I made of Russian jet....

 I didn't make this, but really like this little contemporary ring that is carved out of jet (Russian) with an Australian opal mosaic under a quartz heart doublet cap (ring made in China).   I have one of these and I wear it as a pinky ring on my left hand.  It brings the elements of mourning (jet), broken heartedness (mosaic), Fire (opal), and protection (quartz cab cap) all together for me.  I'm careful when wearing it as jet is such a soft material, so this is sort of a special occassion "prayer" ring for me....

...on another note besides jet, I was researching prayer beads and rosaries.  I came across this very "memento mori" kind of rosary made out of bone.   I copied the image from the ad where it sold awhile ago (is that kosher?)  because I thought it was very cool!  Don't know where this was made or where it's from....

Well, I best get off to the studio.   Thanks for taking the time to read and share in this thread.  

This is very new to me and I don't know anyone who make them. The pieces you shown here really suit the occasions and this is very interesting field to go into. I wish you every success and interesting journey.

Mei 

I am impressed with your thorough knowledge of each stone you cut, not only from a gemstone standpoint, but also it's use through history.  You seem to become one with your projects.  Your dedication to honoring those who have passed is to be admired.  It is my hope that this study of jet and mourning jewelry will help you move through your grief, leaving only the good memories (which then can also symbolized through your amazing works).

By the way, I just love that large jet pendant you recently posted!  Alice 

 Hi Alice,  thanks for your comments!  I do get engrossed with my work and have a passion for the meaning and metaphor in what I do.  As a lapidary artist I think a lot about "geological time" and also how we humans, with our own "time" and concepts around civilization relate to geological time.  I have a deep awareness of the fact that I make ornament out of stone (and other mediums), that will easily last for tens of thousands of years.  My daily grind yields items that will last longer than the longest human civilization that we even know of.   It gives me pause.   And I certainly have a strong spiritual relationship with my work.  I feel like I can understand on both a scientific, Darwinian, and evolutionary level, as well as a spiritual level, that we all come from the "dust of the earth."   So on page one of the Bible it says that we are created out of ground up rocks, while science says that we evolved forth from a primordial stew.  Same stuff, different story.   Anyhow.....enough waxing theo-socio-philosophical....and back to the old grind of what's creation is causing the dust in my studio..

 

 Good Mourning Art Jewelers,  How's it going?  I continue to make jet hearts & beads, although I've been a bit preoccupied with transitioning my eBay management system over the last several weeks and have been pulling my hair out, so I haven't been in the studio too much.   Here's a few images of some new stuff...  I call this stuff "specular jet" cause it's less compressed and the natural surfaces are a little sparkly, rough from Tennessee.... a heart dangle, flat with natural  faces on each side and rounded edges and here's a teardrop in the same material but with one side domed....

 ...and here's a heart I made out of Russian Jet.  

  

I'm hoping to do some inlays and some magnetic jet heart clasps soon!  Thanks for looking! 

 Good Mourning Jewelers,

I've started doing some new things with my "jet broken heart" series.  I've wanted to play with magnetic clasp beads for a LONG time, and I actually cut my first ceramic magnet cab 25 years ago (put it in a ring and had to stop wearing it as I kept erasing my ATM card!)   Anyhow, I picked up 10 pair of SUPER powerful magnetic bead clasps when I was in Tucson last February and here are some of the first creations to have them incorporated into them.  

Using rough material from SE Tennessee I hand cut this piece which measures 50x42mm and is 17mm thick.  Nicely rounded and when I drilled it through side to side, it broke along a natural pressure fracture.  WHAT AN OPPORTUNITY!  I took some VERY POWERFUL magnetic clasp cylindrical beads and I bored out the centers of the drill holes, on the inside of the jet heart along the break.  I then cleaned and glued the magnetic clasp inside the center of the heart.  Once dry I cleaned, sanded, and repolished it all, leaving the "break" as the focal point in this one of a kind piece.  The clasp centerpiece holds tight, with the magnets a little off center (unintentionally) but makes for a dramatically broken, but held strongly together, broken heart.  Made for beading with this as the centerpiece, 2mm drill holes on either side lead to 1.5mm holes through the magnets with little indents on the inside for tying off one's ends.   I hope whoever gets this piece will send me a pic of it worked up into something special!  These are time consuming to make but I really like the effect and hope to make more. and here's the interior shot of the clasps...    then I was moved to do something with an old steel skeleton key that's been sitting on my workbench.     soooo.....
Using rough material from SE Tennessee I hand cut this piece which measures 54x44mm and is 20mm thick.  Nicely rounded edges and  natural, buff polished faces.   I call this piece the "key to broken heart".  I inlaid a single magnet clasp bead  in top cleft with 1.5mm hole down into key slot.  This single magnet is so strong, there's one that  image shows heart being suspended from tip of key by magnet!  Those little suckers are strong!  Magnet also keeps key in key slot.  Key is from my late Grandma's house & collection of skeleton keys.  Surface rust on key could easily be removed with a brillo pad & buffed shiny, but I left it on for a "patina" effect.  I imagine a jewelry designer  beading down on either side to center and just having the key as a removeable element that is held firmly in the keyhole by the magnet.  Alternatively, beading from center cleft to end loop of key and when they are stuck together, let it hang off center as a focal piece-clasp!           I have more of these keys and more magnetic clasps and LOTS more ideas of how to work them into my lapidary creations!  Gotta keep you beaders busy and inspired.  Maybe someday I'll learn how to bead!  I know it sounds silly, but I've made literally 6,000 to 8,000 bead pendants over the past 10 years and I don't know how to string beads!  (I mean, I'm not stupid, I have a pretty clear concept, but to do it RIGHT, and have it look right, and all that jazz, I don't know if I'm ready for it...)  

 Thanks for looking.  Opal inlaid and other inlaid broken jet hearts coming to a mourning thread near you soon....

I too am obsessed with mourning jewelry. It began many years ago when my Grandfather would bring back mourning jewelry from auctions. I remember taking a brooch outside and just staring at it in the sun. I was moved in my soul by the fact that the hair still glistened as if were still attached to the person who it belonged to. It was as if a part of them never died.. I never forgot how I felt.

 I too lost someone close to me, my Grandmother. I built my house next door to her so I could be near her and my Grandfather. One night I stopped in for a quick visit and I found her on the couch with her life slipping away. I called 911 and she passed an hour later. I always thought I would get a phone call, I never thought I would be the one to find her. It changed who I was.

 Through that intense grief, I created Betty's Love Remembrance Jewelry in memory of her.  I started out making them locally and now make them for people all over the country via the wonderful internet :) It is bittersweet creating them for people. I have made so many over the past few years. From cremation ashes, to chips of paint from a motorcycle accident, I have encapsulated so many sacred things. It has turned into my small business which I enjoy more than anything. To know that my creations have touched people and brought comfort ~ is to have lived, at least to me.  Here is a link to my Etsy shop (website is in the works!)

Thank you for posting this wonderful thread, your creations are gorgeous :)

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5808008

 Hi All, I'm finally getting back to being able to work and process more of my stuff with mourning jewelry.  I'm really trying to gear up to do some inlays.  Betty, I think your way of "encapsulating" pieces of remembrances for people in your work is really sweet.  Thanks for sharing your story. 

I've just been doing some simple pieces, mostly teardrops and hearts, including some jet cab hearts.  Here are some examples, the first being a shield bead....   a military style "dog tag"   a heart cab with a "natural surface"... and a classic teardrop.... 

I've been getting really strong "messages" that I should inlay sunstones, opals, and other gems into the jet beads I make to "bring some light into the darkness..."   We'll see where this leads me.  Thanks for looking!   

Good Mourning Art Jewelers,    I hope that all is well in your worlds, and that if things aren't well, that you are experiencing "good grief" over it.  I continue to do my work in creating contemporary mourning jewelry as a form of my own "grief relief" and jet continues to call me in interesting ways.   I just found out that an article about "Death, Suicide, and Faerie Elders" that I wrote and submitted to a periodical called RFD (it sort of stands for Radical Faerie Digest) is published in the Fall issue.   That's a little intense because I sent it out on July 3rd, 3 days after the deadline and none of the 3 editors of the issue I sent it to ever responded to my submission.   I thought I would at least get a confirmation that they were gonna publish my article!  So I did some DEEP sharing that is now published and it will be interesting to see how people in my community respond....

Recently I've felt called to (and requested to) make more jet focal beads with simple inlays.  While I'm not a big fan of doing the detail work involved in inlay, I do appreciate the results and I think that the jet makes a good backdrop and framing for many stones.  Here's a jet heart bead with a 6x8 high dome STAR SUNSTONE cabochon from Tanzania.  This is a very high quality sunstone that actually exhibits asterism within a chatoyant cats eye effect (chatoyant is from the French "chat oeil" meaning cat eye).  Under good lighting this sunstone shows a definite up and down cat eye effect and a slightly less obvious side to side asterism, creating a 4 pointed star in the center of the dome of the cab.  Very few sunstones do this!  Sunstone is a kind of feldspar, most commonly from India, but a high quality variety is the state gemstone of Oregon (mines for it are in the SE part of the state in the desert), and recently very high quality sunstones like this one have been coming out of Tanzania....  

I also made another "key to a broken heart" centerpiece bead that can also function as a clasp, with a strong magnet in the top hole and an antique key that fits in a side keyhole that runs up under the magnet.  This piece is half polished and half buffed natural finish on the face.  The other side is flat and buffed natural finish.  Tennessee jet, chain is just in place temporarily for display...   Then I had another heart break TWICE while I was cutting it.  So I mended that broken heart with lapidary epoxy and stuck in two Australian opal chips into the breaks.  One is watery blue and the other is a bright pink fire. There are still TINY chips and craks visible, but ironically the parts that are mended are the strongest parts of the bead!  I love the combination of these two stones together, the dark and the light.  It reminds me of the refrain in that Leonard Cohen song ANTHEM, that goes,
" Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in."    

This is another opal inlay of a little 4mm round circle in Tennessee jet.  Nice multi color pinfire in the opal....

I'm still perfecting my inlay technique.  The details and tolerances are challenging.  I think I should get some of the colores brand black durenamel grinding hardner for my inlay.  Has anyone out there ever used the colores epoxy resin in their work?  I suppose that question would be a good one for a wider thread than just the folks reading this. 

Anyhow, thanks for letting my blather on about my work a bit more!   I'm moving my studio & office over the next two days, so wish me (and my back) good luck!  Rocks and lapidary equipment and tables and shelves and office stuff are HEAVY!  I do have some GREAT friends who are helping and I'm excited about the new studio space I'm moving into.  Smaller, cleaners, WARMER, ABOVE ground, much CHEAPER, with WINDOWS and hot water AND a bathroom!  I've been really stressed about it all but this great place fell into my lap and I'm really grateful (so I'm also running a sale in my eBay store since I'm outof production for a bit!)   Thanks again and have a great week!

Hey Folks, it seems like just yesterday it was the "Day of the Dead" festivities going on!  My ex and I went to a Day of the Dead procession here in Portland.  He dressed up like "Auntie Sam" and I was a "Dead Garden Gnome."     The arts community on Alberta St. had a lot of Day of the Dead stuff at their "Last Thursday" event and the local Radical Faerie community spearheaded the procession and several public altars for our dead ancestors, as well as a special altar for our dead animal friends.   We'll have to do a better job on our makeup for the procession next year.  We didn't do very good skull makeup as all we had was white pancake makeup and we used an actual piece of charred wood from our fire pit for the black (not recommended!).  I probably should have made the black makeup out of jet dust, but that was at the studio.   I am so not a makeup queen.  A friend who is a professional performing pagan, did a bang up job on her makeup, and note the beaded "collar" that I gave her (it was made in China)

 

I normally think about death a lot around this time of year as the last 8 weeks of the year hold my parents birthdays, the anniversaries of their deaths, as well as Day of the Dead, Thanksgiving, Solstice, and Christmas in my Holiday calendar.  Since I don't have much family and the "big" holidays are so close to the anniversaries of my parents deaths, I don't much get in the "cheerful" holiday spirit as much as I do just try and endure and muddle through the whole period.  I've grown accustomed to it in the 20+ years since my parents passed when I was in college, but my beloved greyhound and service dog, McGwire starting having severe seizures a month ago and I had to put him down.  It's been almost a month since he passed and I'm just now beginning to be able to talk about it.  I really miss having him to take with me to the studio or his being so excited when I got home.   I work alone so not having him has left a big hole in my life.  Anyhow, it's cold and wet here in Portland, and I'm trying not to wallow in it, and not sure why I just shared what I just shared, but that's the way the lapidary laps.....

....and I DO try to make my work be a part of my "process" and I've been working on more mourning beads, as you can well imagine.  It seems even more appropriate this time of year to be working in black.  It's not all dark though.  One thing the dark and cold of winter brings us are snowflakes and I do have such strong memories of growing up in Michigan and the beauty of snowflakes.  So I've cut some snowflake obsidian, the black goes well with the mourning theme and the snowflakes add an ephemeral quality to the bead....
 

and I've done a nice little assortment of pieces that I made out of Russian jet,

....and I like leaving some natural surfaces, which I buff smooth and shiny for a cool variegated surface, on the rough jet that I have that comes from SE Tennessee.... 

I FINALLY got 3 little TINY pieces of supposedly, actual, WHITBY jet from England.  The rough is hard to come by and those who do sell it on eBay are asking a BIT too much for it.  So I found three little pieces in a cheap auction.  I'm looking forward to making little cabs out of them just so I can become more familiar with the differences between jet from different locations.  At the Portland Bead Society show recently a fellow stonecutter friend of mine gave me a piece of jet rough from Alabama.  It looks almost identical to the Tennessee rough and it will be interesting to see if there are any differences in that material.  The Tennessee and the Russian material are so similar that the average person would see the cut material and not be able to tell the difference, but as a cutter they do both really respond differently and have different characteristics.  

Well, that's all for now.  I'll post some more info soon.  I recently got some booklets and old source information on jet mourning jewelry that is really fascinating.  Thanks for looking and letting me share here.