The Beauty Of Organic Vintage Jewelery – From Coloured Gemstones To Wood, Nuts, Shell & Amber

Jewelery, made from organic materials, in my opinion, is the most interesting of all. In previous posts, I wrote about the peak eras of resource extraction during the mid-twentieth century.

Humans tend to mine, or access what is most accessible at the time. Many of the old turquoise mines shut down long ago. Ivory, coral, and amber all have restrictions and limitations on what can be used and sold now.

It seems like we may have passed the time, when the earth’s resources were considered to be an endless supply. Once the valuables were mined or taken from the easy access locations, the further one has to go to find the valuable organic materials. The more difficult the access, the less abundant, and the more expensive things become.

In addition, the organic materials create hands-on educational opportunities. What kind of shell, nut, wood, or bead is this? It would take many years to be able to identify all the materials used, spanning a century or more of living, travel, and post-war abundance. We took things for granted.

Now, not only are the materials more “precious” should we say? For those of us who appreciate natural materials more than synthetic or manmade items, we have good reasons for our appreciation. Nothing reflects or absorbs colour like baltic amber in the sunlight. Shells and mother of pearl are beautifully iridescent. Every single gemstone is unique.

Ethically, and from a sustainable development perspective, the preservation and re-use of jewelery made from organic materials makes so much sense. How many of us, other than carpenters – know how to identify all the different types of wood? Ebony and rosewood, are among the types of wood used by higher end designers. They are often adorned with diamonds, gold, or sterling silver. Chanel, YSL and Miriam Haskell all designed some beautiful wood jewelery over the years. The array of antique and vintage wooden jewelery boxes, is staggering when it comes to attention to detail, and quality of workmanship.

Also, most of us would not know how to identify all the different types of nuts that have been used to make jewelery over the years. If we live in a location without nut trees, we have no idea what kind of nuts are on a necklace. Believe it or not, there are antique carved walnut necklaces that took hundreds of hours to make. Each walnut has carved scenes. They are antiques from China, and I believe the carved walnuts are called hediao.

“Known as ‘hediao’, fruit or nut pit carving is a folk art which became popular in China during the Qing Dynasty 1644-1911 the last imperial dynasty of China.Jan 2, 2021″.

Amber does not come with fully intact little bugs or spiders inside. There are many fakes. But with authentic Baltic amber, you can see the bits of organic material inside. More so, there is a glow that comes from deep within, so you can see the interplay between the amber and ultraviolet light, when taking macro photos. The macro photography has given me a better eye for, and a better understanding and perspective, when it comes to organic jewelery. There is nothing like amber and rock crystal, if you want to get out of a humdrum picture taking mode.

Amber is a much wider field of study than most of us realize. We tend to think of its colour as being the golden yellow that we see most often in Baltic amber. However it can also be found in red, green, blue, brown, orange, and black. In fact, there are over sixty types of fossil resins from all over the world. And guess what? The oldest fossil resins are found in Canada! Here is an excerpt from a site with a full a glossary of the types of fossil resins, and where they are found.

“There are over 60 types of fossil resin known all over the world. The youngest of them can be found in
East America, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, or even Europe. The oldest sources of fossil resin can be
found in Canada. It is worth remembering that many types of resin such as Arabic gum, manila copal
mastic, myrrh, sandarach, and dammar resin are artificially produced. Nowadays many chemical,
physical genetic, and paleontologic researchers are being widely conducted. Its main idea is to find the
mother trees of fossil resin types.”

Another fascinating and colourful gemstone is Ammolite. The only gemstones made of this very colourful, organic, fossilized sea creature material, came from Alberta, Canada.

“While fossilized ammonites can be found in several places around the world, a small area within the Bearpaw Formation, the name for the area leftover from where sediment settled on the bottom of sea, in Southern Alberta, Canada, is the only location where they have been turned into gemstones.” How about that? Alberta actually has some gems!

Organic adornments help us to appreciate nature. If they land up discarded in a landfill, for the most part, they will turn into compost.

We may have come to a point where we no longer take the earth’s resources for granted, including the time, labour, and energy it takes to create things.

When I think of putting together a collection that spans 20th century design, I wonder if it is a massive reflection of labour intensive materialism. We are not quite 25% into the 21st century, and already the view of the earth and its resources is changing dramatically.

As we turned the millennial corner, fast fashion became the rage, and “new is better” set the stage. Now suddenly, there are labour shortages, material and supply chain difficulties, travel and shipping restrictions, higher costs on extracting resources, etc. etc.

We defined progress, and then watched it happen. It all grew like a mustard tree. Now we regress, and the common people do not have quite as much opulence and wealth. There is more concern over food security and housing, than there is over fashion and art right now. It is totally understandable.

At a certain point, progress as we once knew it,  is no longer progress. Success needs to be redefined. We pick up these remnants, and pass them on. We are only stewards of the earth’s resources. If we take care of, and protect what is already here, maybe we will have the resources to work toward, and pay for the things that matter most.

When you really think about it – will there even be a 21st century of design? I wonder…

Copyright Valerie J. Hayes and Quiet West (2022). Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author/owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Valerie J. Hayes and Quiet West with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.