Pearls and Dreams
Pearls and Dreams
Timeless is the human fascination with pearls.
In The Book of the Pearl, George Frederick Kunz (1856-1932) speculated that an ancient fish-eating tribe, perhaps along the coast of India, first appreciated the shape and lustre of saltwater pearls. Perhaps they discovered pearls while opening oysters for food.
Soon pearls became potent symbols around the world. A Roman general is said to have financed a military campaign by selling just one of his mother’s pearl earrings. The Hindu god Krishna is said to have made a wedding day gift of pearls. Pearls are enshrined in both the Koran and the Bible.
IBISwoman is fascinated with pearls called baroques. *Any* pearl that is non-spherical and non-symetrical is called a baroque. However, at IBISwoman, we gravitate toward the most baroque of the baroques. What to call them? Ultra-baroques? Freeform pearls? Extreme baroq-itude? No matter. They are singular specimens and often in our dreams.
Our favorite baroque pearls include the non-nucleated keishis. In this form, nacre begins to puddle in the shell rather than building around a nucleus. The result: flat, cupped and flower petal shapes. We love the so-called fireball pearl, which look something like comets in flight. Let’s also not forget button- and coin-shaped pearls, cultivated specially to produce these shapes.
Thanks to connections made earlier this year at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, IBISwoman has the strongest inventory in years of designs made with baroque pearls. Hope you’ll enjoy these views. Who knows whether they’ll show up in your dreams, too.