This is adorable, and peridot is the perfect color to portray a green Amazon parrot. Whoever carved it did a great job on it, and we now have 8 peridot articles posted, and 2 on spinel so far this month to cover August's birthstones.
Britt’s Pick: Peridot Parrot Pendant By Amáli Jewelry By Brittany Siminitz | August 04, 2022
"If you can say “peridot parrot pendant” three times fast, then you may indeed be tickled by this peridot parrot pendant.
If nothing else, the exercise might bring a smile to your face.
As will the sight of this carved wonder from Amáli Jewelry, a peridot worthy of the most marvelous of August birthdays, and every day in between.
A carved peridot head, with feathered details so lifelike you might forget it’s a gem (shown above), gives way to a beak of obsidian and eyes in rock crystal, the finishing touch that gives the tropical creature life.
“I fell in love with this playful, jubilant little parrot as soon as I saw her [at the Tucson shows],” says Amáli designer Sara Freedenfeld. “Our world has been thick with so much grief and sadness these last few years, and my hope is that these new carved pieces touch the joyful parts of us that may have been dormant for a while.”
Freedenfeld refers to other new carved pieces, an offering from the brand that blends its signature gemstone aesthetic with a series of beautifully exuberant likenesses. See, for further example, a boulder opal owl, petrified wood and blue opal bird, and opal skull, among others.
Such offerings bring to mind a number of conversations I had with jewelers at JCK Las Vegas this year concerning customers’ desires to have fun with their jewelry and, however surprisingly, for significant prices too. Fine gemstones are being treated with a whimsy that isn’t often seen. Many designers with whom I spoke felt they were taking risks by creating such playful jewels, departures from their typical lines. And yet, all recounted being met with surprise as customers gobbled up their happy creations, finding cheer when it was most needed.
One of a kind has always sold first despite being the highest prices when presented with a room full of manufactured, not styled. In a room full of styled, look for the most expensive rough used to start. In Tuscon we tried to get a few carvers or famous cab cutters to buy gem opalized woods and they all thought we should give it to them for maybe some returned in the future, as opposed to buying one of a kind material at wholesale to help the miners, just saying. If people go out looking for material that is not so common that the big dealers can wheel and deal the high grade to factories, there is a collector holding what you have to buy from them now. Granted some reputations are un-worldly after the years of repetition. I personally picked out the crazing lightning ridge from the rough barrel to show it was a chance where ever opal was mined from. Don't see that much any morte & certainly not the tons of whites from the 70s. Back to graded for the best to those who could pay the most. We dont see production art in museums. I do crank out wire wraps with everything from LR doublets to treated Virgin Valley one at a time to keep the under 50 dollar cases full. I never think anything but specimen will be bought from me for a museum as far as history has shown me.
