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ReinventIngrid - Frame what you see…Look up and beyond…Learn about yourself ReinventIngrid - Frame what you see…Look up and beyond…Learn about yourself
Frame what you see…Look up and beyond…Learn about yourself
January 26, 2017

Opal, the Impressionist stone

Art Everywhere
Opal, the Impressionist stone

Freshly back to my Art History studies, my friend Lorenza was hoping for a few jewel-related stories into the discussions of our course on Impressionism.  Jewelry and gemstones are high on my grid but mixed with Impressionism, isn’t it a stretch? Not in my world: Opal is the Impressionist gemstone par excellence!   Look at the range of pastel colors this opal displays: the soft brownish orange turning to a blushed apricot and a hint of coral, the green alternating between moss and forest until it fluoresces neon-like while bright aqua blue is dispersed widely with rare specks of royal blue emerging from the depth.   This spectacle is what us gemologists call play-of-color, and it is visually very similar to the open and broken brushstrokes associated with the Impressionists and Monet in particular. Let me take you beyond the surface of opal for a bit of gemology… Erosion can have beautiful consequences. Water runs down, picks up mostly silica and other minor elements and becomes a silica-rich solution which permeates cracks. Once there, such solution deposits as small silica spheres which can vary in size depending on temperature and pressure. As the process repeats itself, a whole structure of tiny […]

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by Ingrid Westlake

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My blog is about my constant reinvention, also called living a full life as long as you are prepared to never stop looking. It’s about sharing an aesthetic love of life and how using art as a filter or prism enables me (and hopefully you!) to reach a more grounded state of mind.

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