Hi.
Welcome to the Ozone and our adventures!
Welcome to the Ozone and our adventures!
It was amazing venturing down to the Opal Queen mine with Outlaw Rocks to dig for the blazing Oregon Fire Opals. Upon returning home, we couldn’t wait to cut some of this dramatic material. This gem here was cut with Arya Akhavan’s ‘Ruination’ cut, which seemed to be the perfect design to bring out the most of the saturated color and incredible glimmer. The opals have an array of warm hue tones and clarities, so we decided to do a comparison experiment by cutting the same cut with many different values of the stones. A video will be coming out soon about the trip and gazing at this fabulous line up of cut gems.
If you’ve been following us on YouTube (which is a great idea!), you’ve seen the Friday Night Lives (at 6pm PST every Friday night) showcasing the latest finds, studio work, and the ‘MicrOZONE’. The latter takes our favorite or latest stone and gem projects and places them under the microscope for a different perspective on the crystal growth patterns, fossil formations, and an eyeful of natural beauty. In addition to the Fridays, we’ve been ‘going live’ during the week to share studio time faceting, cutting stones, grading rough, and all sorts of behind the scenes fun. Subscribe to ‘Ozone Fine ArtVentures’ on YouTube to join in on the fun!
For the next few weeks, we’ll be processing the Fire Opals from our mining trip. There’s a lot of rough to go through, figure out its clarity and fracture status, and cut it down so it’s ready to facet or cab. We’ll be integrating these stones soon into new jewelry designs that we’ll feature here in the Shop. Check the livestreams for live studio time and you may catch us making a gem or jewelry piece that you end up with! Also, keep an eye out for our next ‘Live Sale’ on YouTube where you can see the potential purchases performing live before you buy.
It’s important to take a really close look at gems to see what the quality of the material is as well as the finish. This is a great excuse to go deep into the beautiful worlds that reside inside the stones that can only be seen with magnification. Here we have an Oregon Sunstone with Schiller. The red sprinkles are actually copper platelet inclusions that can give the gem body color and cause the gem to glimmer like it’s full of tiny confetti. This particular bicolor Sunstone has an unusually large inclusion (that big red dot!) that makes this stone particularly unique. This wonderful gem is still awaiting its perfect setting, what would you do with it?
It’s inspiring to be working with new materials. During the mining season we’ve accumulated lovely rough to create gems from and we’ve received some wonderful material through the mail as well. There will be Oregon Fire Opal, Gemfields Chalcedony, Fire Agate, Oregon Sunstones, Garnet, Silver Ore, Copper in Dolomite, Labradorite, Charoite, Amethyst and more dancing together in upcoming pieces. We’ll also be working on Tourmaline, Aquamarine, Nevada Variscite, Turquoise, Gary Green, Petrified Woods and Moss Agates among others, to work some fresh colors into the warm fall tones. Keep an eye on the store and the Collections page to see the latest emerging from the workbench.
We’ve been sending out these sweet packages with wonderful jewelry items and there’s one question that keeps coming up; does packaging have to equal waste? We’re combating the trash cycle with some hand made, super functional packaging items to not only get your jewelry to you safely, but also help you to keep your jewelry organized and stowed in style! Check out the BLOG for more information about the cool, new packaging!
Owyhee would love to hear from you!
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