Crinoid Fossil - Turquoise Eye Sea Lily Necklace

Description: This necklace was hand made with deep love and attention. This piece holds the energy of millions of years of oceanic history and the hundreds of focused hours that it took to craft this striking piece. This art is part of a collection and can be worn alone or with its one of a kind counterparts. Turquoise Eye Sea Lily Necklace is 20-5/8" long, has no clasp, and weighs 2 ounces. The stunning central attraction is a 37 mm x 30 mm x 18 mm chunk of veined turquoise set off by two brass heishi beads and two turquoise heishi beads. Complementing this are 251 crinoids, also known as “sea lily segments” that measure about 4 mm in diameter, interspersed at random intervals with 29 turquoise heishi beads off the same diameter. More about the specific details of this piece: Turquoise Eye Sea Lily Necklace was one of the last necklaces Keren strung. It was completed sometime in 2018. Near the top, Keren inserted two small hammered-brass spherical beads, also flanked by brass heishi. Among the single-thickness crinoids are five chunks near the top that are about three crinoids in thickness, and about 20 that are double-thickness. You can see in the photos how The Turquoise Eye Sea Lily Necklace harmonizes with some of Keren's other turquoise pieces. The artist who created this one of a kind masterpiece: Keren Wells (1946-2019) was born and raised in downtown Ithaca, NY. In 1974, she and her Standard Poodles began living on the western shore of Cayuga Lake. She was there for nearly 50 years. One day soon after she moved in, she was on the little, shale beach next to her dock and noticed small, perfectly round stones among the broken bits of shale—not many, but some. She began collecting them, just for fun. A few miles south of her home stood New York’s Paleontological Research Institution. Ms. Wells took her jar of minute and intriguing objects there for information. She learned they were the segments of a sea creature called a crinoid, also known as a sea lily, feather star, or comutulid. Apparently, millions of years ago when Cayuga Lake was part of the North American continent’s salt-water sea system, these creatures lived offshore from her home. I say this because Ms. Wells was adept at finding the small crinoidea and never found them anywhere on the lake except along the shore close to her beach. The crinoid fossils she found were from creatures who lived in Cayuga Lake 450-million years ago. Ms. Wells experimented with how to use crinoidea for art and discovered she could make them into beads for necklaces. She found that a hand-powered pump drill gave her control of the pressure so that she could create tiny holes in the relatively softer centers of the crinoidea. Although it was a better drilling method than a power drill, she once told me that she broke about 9 out of 10 of the smallest crinoidea (fewer of the larger sizes) and many drill bits. In making the necklaces shown here, Ms. Wells was exacting on achieving a smooth arrangement of the crinoidea she strung together. To that end, she measured and separated her drilled specimens. She used a professional, tempered-steel, fractional-size, drill gauge to organize her collection into a range of 29 diameters from 0.062 to 0.406 inches. Each size had its own small glass bottle with its diameter written on the lid. Ms. Wells used tough silk beading cord to string these heavy disks together. She strung some of her earlier necklaces with spontaneity. Later, they were strung with a schema she developed through sketches beforehand. Some were interspersed with glass beads, turquoise, antique coral, or fresh-water pearls. The lengths of her necklaces varied considerably from chokers, to princess, matinee, and opera lengths. Most of her designs employ graduated sizes with the largest crinoidea in the center, with each subsequent piece getting smaller as they progress toward the bail. Many of her matinee necklaces can be layered together

Price: 998 USD

Location: Ithaca, New York

End Time: 2024-11-30T16:32:25.000Z

Shipping Cost: N/A USD