It’s Tuesday, which means that it’s time for another installment in our coverage of turquoise. Today, I thought it might be useful to talk about different forms — not types, or sources, but states of being — used in the processes of cutting, cabbing, and making jewelry. As with last week’s installment, the turquoise shown, in whatever form, is from Wings’s personal collection — and some of it is very old indeed.
Today, we’re going to cover five specific states, or stages, or turquoise other than what the average wearer is used to seeing (i.e., other than highly polished cabochons of pieces of inlay): rough; nugget; boulder; ribbon; and free-form. [The terminology, of course, can be applied to virtually any gemstone, particularly the sort that ends up as finished cabochons rather than faceted stones.] Where available, I’ll include photos of pieces that use the turquoise in the states described. Some will be Wings’s work, some will not; some will be pieces already sold, some will be pieces still available for purchase.
TURQUOISE ROUGH
This is the stone’s most basic state, the one in which it becomes readily identifiable to most people as “turquoise.”
When turquoise is mined, most people often would not identify the large chunks of rock that are extracted as “turquoise.” Occurring secondarily to another mineral, usually copper, turquoise exists mostly in veins in the surrounding “host rock,” whatever that may be. Host rock varies substantially by geography and geology, and can range from metals like copper itself to the hardened red-brown sandstone and siltstone common that are the hallmarks of the Bisbee shown above to plain brown and gray rock. The type of host rock, and the presence of other minerals and/or water, also helps determine the color of the turquoise itself, and the degree, type, and color of any webbing — i.e., matrix — found in the turquoise.
Experienced miners and gemologists, however, can recognize which pieces of rock are likely to contain turquoise. Once the host rock is split, veins of blue and.or green becomes visible. This is what provides the turquoise that ultimately appears in the jewelry you wear.
Seems modest, doesn’t it? Also unlikely. How do these tiny splotches become the enormous cabochons found in some large cuff bracelets and pendants?
The answer is in expert cutting. A thin vein of turquoise may actually run several inches deep through the host rock. Provided that the host rock is extracted beneath the bottom of the vein, it then can be cut across the depth of the rock, yielding a thin but very wide piece of rough turquoise. This is what is used to create large, flat cabochons.
Turquoise rough, however, is just that: Rough. In this form, it cannot be used in jewelry; the host rock makes it too heavy, for one thing, and most people want a highly polished stone, not a bulky rock containing the gem in its naturally-occurring state. It’s also dull, often chalky-looking. The only reason the pieces of rough in the photos above are so clear and bright is that Wings sprayed them with water before taking the photo, so that the colors would “pop” and readers would be better able to see the lines and gradations.
Below, we cover other states of turquoise that do make it into jewelry.
TURQUOISE NUGGET
A turquoise nugget is just what it sounds like: a [relatively small] piece of turquoise, fully extracted from the host rock and identifiable as such. In practical terms, it also refers to a piece that has been lightly polished so that it’s clearly identifiable even to the untrained eye as turquoise. In the photo above are examples of Arizona and Nevada turquoise nuggets from Wings’s personal collection, some of which are very old and were part of his late father’s collection. They vary widely in size (from an inch to almost three inches in length, and nearly flat to an inch in depth), and in value (Royston nuggets, which is likely what the blue and gold one at the bottom is, are of modest value; even the smallest Sacred White Buffalo nuggets from Indian Mountain, like the large one at the top, fetch enormous prices).
For most jewelry, even turquoise nuggets are not really useable. Indian jewelry is sometimes the exception, where nuggets are sometimes simply drilled at one end and hung on a thong as a pendant.
Another use involves cutting a slab from the top of the nugget and setting it into a bezel as a rougher version of a free-from cabochon (discussed below). An example of a nugget cabochon is the following pendant, which hangs from the bottom of the turquoise horse-fetish necklace in our Other Artists: Miscellaneous Jewelry Gallery, is at right.
In both of these cases, the turquoise shown is Morenci, from Arizona, a type of turquoise that lends itself unusually well to nugget and free-form work because of its iconic appearance, deep blue color, and classic black-looking matrix (actually pyrite, or “fool’s gold”).
BOULDER TURQUOISE
“Boulder turquoise” is turquoise that has not been extracted entirely form its host rock — in other words, it is cut, cabbed, and used in jewelry as a part of the rock, or boulder, in which it was found. Above is an example of boulder turquoise in its “rough” state, in this case, Bisbee turquoise from Arizona in its hallmark red-brown host rock. With Bisbee, it is a specific type of sedimentary rock indigenous to the area, sandstone and/or siltstone that occurs naturally in this specific maroon color. In Bisbee cabochons, you will often see the color described as “chocolate matrix.”
When boulder turquoise is cut into slabs or cabs, it appears like the piece of Bisbee at left: small splotches and veins of turquoise throughout the larger mass of host rock. Put differently, the stone is msotly host rock, with turquoise providing the “matrix,” so to speak. It’s still identifiably turquoise, and in this case, being brilliant deep-blue Bisbee, it’s still valuable, but less so than if it were a slab or cab of Bisbee turquoise with the host rock providing the chocolate matrix.
As noted above, however, not all host rock looks like this. Depending on where it is found, it may be varying shades of brown or gray, reflecting the natural geology of the region. An example of boulder turquoise turned into cabochons and set in a jewelry piece is this three-piece necklace Wings made several years ago (long since sold):
Boulder turquoise upholds traditional principles of thrift: It’s a way of creating something beautiful without having to invest a huge sum of money up front, and it ensures that no turquoise, however small the vein, goes to waste. With this necklace, Wings chose three separate cabochons, all cut in a free-from” design, each primarily golden-brown host rock with a darker brown matrix, but each with small amounts of brilliant sky-blue turquoise embedded in it. Once cut and cabbed, the host rock, which would normally appear a dirty tan-gray color, is beautiful on its own merits. The bright bits of Skystone appearing here and there highlight the golden beauty of the boulder in which it appears, and vice versa. He set each piece of boulder turquoise into its own hand-formed sterling silver bezel, and then strung each set piece from large open-work sterling silver links. The piece sold for $425.
RIBBON TURQUOISE
Some people use the terms “ribbon turquoise” and “boulder turquoise” interchangeably, but they are not precisely identical. “Boulder turquoise,” as noted above, refers specifically to stone that comprises a sizeable chunk of host rock dotted by smaller pieces of turquoise, either in a splotchy pattern or slightly wider bands. “Ribbon turquoise,” on the other hand, is host rock shot through with one or more narrow veins, or “ribbons,” of turquoise, as in the photo shown directly above.
So how does ribbon turquoise come to be? Well, remember what I said above about how turquoise is cut and chipped from host rock to make cabochons? When the vein runs deep enough, the cutter can extract a wide slab of turquoise, even if it’s fairly shallow when cut away from the host rock. Such wider pieces are ideal for cabochons. But what happens when you have a slender vein in host rock of a very shallow depth?
Exactly. Ribbon turquoise.
Like boulder turquoise, ribbon turquoise is left inside the host rock, which is then cut into size and shape pleasing to the eye and suitable for use in jewelry, then “cabbed” and polished. It creates a dynamic contrast: the subtle neutral tones of the host rock, shot through with one bold ribbon of brilliant blue or green (or sometimes more than one). And, as with boulder turquoise, it ensures that nothing goes to waste. It likewise allows Native artisans who perhaps cannot afford large cabs at a given moment still to produce their art, and permits customers who might not be able to justify spending a large sum on a piece of Indian jewelry focused around one expensive cabochon nonetheless to afford a beautiful piece of turquoise Indian jewelry at a more modest price.
FREE-FORM TURQUOISE
“Free-form” turquoise is another form that is often used to refer to different types. Some people use it to refer to nuggets, or even barely polished rough. In actuality, it refers specifically to cabochons, cut and polished in a shape that follows the natural flow and form of the stone itself, rather than cutting away much of the raw material to force it into standard jewelry shapes (e.g., round, oval, square, rectangle, teardrop, triangle). In the photo at the very top of this post, the top three pieces of turquoise (at roughly 11:00, 12:00, and 1:00, if you were looking at them as on a clock face), are all examples of free-form turquoise.
A better view is provided in the photo immediately above. All six of the stones here are natural turquoise cabochons: They’ve all been cut, cabbed, and polished, and they’re all ready for use in jewelry settings or other silverwork. Of the six cabs, half are free-form; half are not. Most are obvious, but not all, so let’s go through them by their numbers.
The cabochon labeled 1. appears at first glance to be a standardized oval cabochon. It’s not. If you look closely, particularly around the upper and lower edges, you can see that it is uneven, looking slightly out of balance. Sometimes that is merely the result of inexpert cabbing, but in this case, it was an example of the cutter following the line of the stone and not trimming away extraneous material to force it into a perfect oval shape. Commercial producers (and a lot of non-Native jewelers, even of “Indian-style” jewelry, would reject such a stone, seeing it as “imperfect.” To us, it’s more perfect because it remains true to its form and spirit.
Cabochon 2. is what is classified loosely as oval, although it is narrower at one end than the other; in practical terms, it’s a cross between an oval and a teardrop. But it’s a standard cabochon. It is domed a bit, which is nice — meaning that the cutter allowed the stone to retain its surface height — but it’s the sort of cab that would be considered perfect enough for standardized settings, in terms of shape.
Cabochon 3. is clearly free-form; it’s highly polished and incredibly smooth, but not only has it been permitted to stay true to its natural shape, it hasn’t had the matrix lines ground down to a glassy smoothness. There’s texture. This is the sort of stone that is a bit harder to work with, though, which makes it less attractive to silversmiths and jewelers who are more interested in steady production than in creating individual works of art. A cabochon like this can be handled in a variety of ways: It can be drilled at one end, turned into a large pendant bead, and simply hung freely from a thong or a chain; it can be cut cross-wise (think cutting a bagel preparatory to slathering the cream cheese on it), and then the newly-thin upper portion backed, either with a sturdier stone or a composite substance, to be set into a regular bezel; or a hand-made bezel, tailored specifically for the size and shape of this particular stone, can be created. The last, of course, is much harder; it takes much more skill and is much more labor-intensive, and usually more costly in terms of materials, so the finished piece is likely to be expensive.
Cabochons 4. and 5. are pretty clearly standardized cabs, the first, triangular, and the second, round. Both are stunningly beautiful specimens and perfect for Indian jewelry. Cabochon 6. might appear at first glance to be a standard one, too, but it’s actually free-form. If you look closely, you will see that it’s ever so slightly offset: not an oval, not a perfect teardrop. It’s also an unusually brilliant green, a color that’s typically found among veins in certain Nevada deposits.
The free-form cabs shown above are, of course, still fairly ordinary-looking stones: most fairly uniform, and not terribly full of depth and texture. For an example of free-form turquoise cabochons that have greater depth, take a look at this piece and an excerpt of its description, which can be found in our Other Artists: Miscellaneous Jewelry Gallery:
This big, bold, beautiful Navajo cuff does double duty as a watchband. The band itself is finely-worked sterling silver in the classic eagle-feather motif . Each side of the band features several carats’ worth of chunky Morenci cabochons in a brilliant sky blue. The watch shown is old, inexpensive, and nonworking, used for display purposes only. A vintage family piece from Wings’s private collection; artist unknown.
Sterling silver; large free-form Morenci turquoise nugget cabochons
$525 + shipping, handling, and insurance
As you can see, the cabochons in the watchband are nearly nugget-like in appearance and texture. They have depth; they are not perfectly smooth and glossy; you can feel the pits and pores and veins that make a piece of turquoise feel alive.
There’s much more to know about turquoise stones: mining, cutting, cabbing, polishing. Eventually, we’ll touch on all of these topics and more. For now, though, I think we have enough background to allow us to get to some of the really fun stuff next week: examples of turquoise from specific mines, and the jewelry made from it.
~ 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 owners.
