High temperatures are still in the 90s here, so summer isn't done with us yet, but Larkin's latest piece foretells Autumn's arrival!
The realistically rough and knobbly silver tree trunk contrasts beautifully with each unique, handmade oak leaf and the smooth, polished silver that completes the frame.
But this pendant has a dark side! While the front features the familiar oaks that comprise most of the forest around our southern Oregon home, Larkin added our least favorite lurker in the forest’s understory to the back: poison oak! The two oaks are only related in name, but they are fitting representatives of the beauty and danger in nature.
The striking black and red stone was found by our family in Humboldt County, California. We suspect it is mostly made up of red jasper in an unknown black conglomerate. The stone is slightly porous so the cabochon's surface does not have a perfect, mirror polish— small imperfections can be seen when light reflects off the stone at certain angles.
Larkin's lapidary work often fades into the background (literally!) once they set a stone into a final piece, but check out this picture of the exposed side of this cabochon!
That is a remarkably even girdle (the vertical section at the edges of a cab, before the top starts to dome), and you can just see it starting to taper towards the bottom corner. Larkin's cabs may not be as flashy as purchased stone (it's important to them that their work does not support questionable mining practices, so they use almost entirely stones found by our family and friends), but mass-produced cabs can't compete with the quality of Larkin's stonework!