In Indian Country, Nature’s own artwork abounds. Last year on this site, we visited the Pictured Rocks of my own homelands; we live nearly next door to the Painted Desert. Today, we’re going to wander off the beaten path a bit to look at some of this geological art in micro, by way of a stone that Wings loves to use, but that doesn’t conform to what most people regard as either “jewel” or “gem”: picture jasper.
Picture jasper is only one of myriad varieties of jasper, a type of chalcedony, a form of microcrystalline quartz. Unlike other forms of those minerals, jasper is opaque. It’s virtually always multi-colored, and usually patterned, as well: Inclusions appear in the form of lines, waves, dots, swirls, orbs, clusters, and all sorts of geometric shapes. We’ve talked about jasper here before; some of it closely resembles agate, but it does not have agate’s translucence. And despite being part of the larger quartz family, it doesn’t appear in the sort of crystalline form common to ordinary quartz; its microcrystalline structure, much grainier, is what gives it its opacity. Jasper is found in all three types of rock — igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary — and it co-occurs with virtually every type of mineral, as well as some non-mineral materials such as coral and dendrites.
Picture jasper manifests in stones marked by banding and other patterns resulting from sedimentary layering and inclusions of other colorful minerals, most often resulting in banded and spotted shades of gray and yellow and brown and red. Some mineralogists refer to banded forms of jasper as a specific variant, jaspilite, one type of rock found in banded iron formations. An example of this type appears in the necklace in the photo at the top of this post, of one of a near-perfectly matched pair commissioned as matching pieces. If you look closely, you can see the pale horizontal lines in the taupe colored rock at top and bottom, with a wide gray band near the center, edged in brick red with a few drop-like splotches of red along the bolder lines. It is the red color that denotes presence of iron in the stone.
Some lump other forms of jasper and even magnesite in with this category, including so-called “White Buffalo” and “Wild Horse,” but they possess a different overall mineralogical composition, and display different matrix patterns. Their appearance tends to be blocky, with bold patches of brown and black matrix on whitish stone. Picture jasper manifests largely in layers and bands, with the color gradients infused through the entire stone. There are many other forms of jasper that appear in other colors and shapes, but picture jasper most often exhibits lines and bands that resemble desert landscapes, hence the name “picture jasper.”
A classic example appears in the photo immediately above, one that looks very much like the red rock desertscapes of the Four Corners region. In this variant, the host rock is a classic earth tone, most often gray or one of many shades of brown or tan. Over eons of time and the attendant geologic-scale pressure accompanied by weight, water, and heat, sedimentary layers compress into the beautiful patterns you see here, each band usually lighter in the center and more intensely colored at the edges. Depending upon the minerals that are compressed in a given chunk of the rock, the bands may appear pale yellow to deep bronze, various shades of tan and brown, other grays or taupe, and reds that range from pale copper to almost blood red. The heart-shaped cabochon shown immediately below is an example of virtually all of the above.
As I noted above, picture jasper often co-occurs with other minerals and materials. Sometimes it even occurs with other forms of jasper, a phenomenon not restricted to the picture jasper variety. Both phenomena appear in the earrings shown here immediately below, a pair Wings made specially for me because of the pattern, which resembles matched cranes. If you look closely, you’ll see the pits and whorls in the stone that are the mark of fossilized coral, which, in the stone from which these slabs were cut, existed concurrently with the picture jasper that is the host rock. You’ll also note that beyond the two flowing dark lines that appear in the shape of a pair of sandhill cranes, there are clusters of dark taupe-colored roundish shapes. This is a phenomenon found in orbicular jasper: a type of jasper in which the matrix manifests in clusters of smudgy round circles, or orbs. Orbicular jasper, however, most often occurs in dark colors on very pale host rock, frequently in shades of green and pink. In this highly unusual matched pair, it appears that both picture jasper and orbicular jasper co-occurred in the same section of host rock, along with coral that over time became fossilized. Considering the imagery involved and the relationship to my name, these are among my most prized possessions.
Picture jasper is relatively common; that, coupled with the type of rock from which it is formed, means that it is also relatively affordable. Of course, the key word is “relative,” since, in a large enough size and carat weight, even affordable per-carat pricing gets expensive. But it is also quite easy to find fairly large cabochons of picture jasper that display beautiful patterning. All but the oval pair shown just below are of substantial size, and thus of moderate value.
In this pair, you can see clearly the reason that picture jasper makes me think of the shifting sands of the desert Southwest. These are not perfectly matched, save in size; they’re probably not even from the same piece of host rock. But both, in different ways, evoke the feel of giant sand dunes, like those just north of us in southern Colorado, or like the fine-grained red dunes in the northwest coastal region of my home state. There’s a feel of motion on an epic scale, of shifting and drifting, grain by solitary grain, over time that runs eternally in either direction.
Not all picture jasper, however, evokes desert images. In some pieces, the feel is less earth than sky, sky at the level of deep space. An example appears just below:
This cabochon is, in my mind, Jupiter in miniature, with perhaps a touch of Mars. The lines like slender canyon rims, each stacked atop the next, speak of a kind of earth that has lived over time beyond measure, the gently curving lines like the blowing dust of planetary storms, all amidst the deep red polar and equatorial lines of the soil itself. Near that equator dance a few charcoal colored spots: Those are dendrites, once living organisms now immobilized and memorialized in the stone itself. Perhaps there is life in space, after all.
To us, picture jasper is a reflection of the earth of our natural world — that world in miniature, its topography reduced to tangible and comprehensible size. But while it’s symbolic in that sense, it has no greater spiritual significance. While there are a number of types of jasper that hold symbolic value for various cultures around the world, to my knowledge, picture jasper is not among them (other than, perhaps, in some contemporary New Age “crystal traditions”). It is, however, a beautiful stone, subtle in color yet bold in pattern, an embodiment of the landscape of this desert region.
Over the years, Wings has created a number of pieces with picture jasper, thus far always, to my knowledge, in the form of necklaces and cuff bracelets. We have only one in inventory currently, and it takes the latter form. I’ve always been surprised that it has not yet found its home. It’s one of my favorites, an embodiment of the red-rock canyon country to our west, set atop a solid dual-strand cuff. It’s one of the few that are sized small enough for my own wrists, which is perhaps another reason it attracts me. It’s also modestly priced, in keeping with the stone’s relative value compared to more expensive stones like turquoise and and lapis. From its description in the Bracelets Gallery:
Desert Canyons Cuff Bracelet
Rich brown and gray tones limned in deep reds evoke the desert’s stark, rugged sandstone canyons in the large oval picture jasper cabochon that forms the centerpiece of this striking cuff. Dual strands of heavy triangle wire support the stone, which rests in a sawtooth bezel.
Sterling silver; picture jasper
$375 + shipping, handling, and insurance
It’s a way to wear a bit of the rugged beauty of the red-rock desert high country: cliffs and mesas and canyon rims, all in the colors of the very earth itself.
For those drawn to the haunting allure of this sacred land, it’s a way to hold and carry a bit of the desert’s own spirit.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
