The Nature of Diamonds - The Milky Way

My Favorite, Truly A Work of Art

I saw a picture of  The Milky Way necklace designed by Toronto artist, Dieter Huebner, before I went to the exhibit and had marveled at its sheer beauty and extraordinary sculptural design.  However, this turned out to be another case of having an unexpectedly magnified impression when seeing something in person. I had imagined myself attempting to pull off wearing something like this at an elegant fundraising event perhaps, but when I saw it, I knew the whole scenario would have to be reconsidered because for one thing, I had the scale all wrong - the dimensions were so much more sumptuous than what I had visualized in my head!

The exhibit portrayed this piece as capturing the look of billowing fabric - a very apt description indeed!  It contains exactly 2000 diamonds on a platinum grid and won the award at the De Beers Diamonds International Awards 2000 Exhibition in Paris for creative commemoration of the new millennium.

Huebner noted the design is a nod to nature and to the stars.

Yum~!

The Nature of Diamonds - The Incomparable

Even though the Mammoths and Mastodons: Titans of the Ice exhibit was very interesting, The Nature of Diamonds exhibit is the reason I went to Chicago yesterday.  This exhibit will close at the Field Museum on Sunday.  It was fabulous!  The first part was a meticulous and extensive scientific examination of how diamonds are formed, their physical properties such as light dispersion (of which, surprisingly enough, are exceeded by CZs~!) and thermal conductivity, why they are concentrated in certain areas of the world, etc - quite thorough and informative but not really the part I wanted to see.

The second part was an awesome display of jewelry and unmounted stones.  It was SO worth my long, long day!

The exhibit included The Incomparable, graded by the GIA in 1988 as a 407.48 carat internally flawless diamond categorized as having a fancy brownish-yellow color.

The Incomparable, initially named The Golden Giant,
was exhibited with some of its 14 "satellite" stones - all gorgeous.

Here's a picture of it with its special stand:

Mammoths and Mastodons - Lyuba - 37,000 year old baby

The Mammoths and Mastodons: Titans of the Ice Age exhibit opened at the Field Museum in Chicago on March 5 and will run through September 6, 2010.  Undeniably, the wholly intact baby woolly mammoth was the star of the exhibit.  She was only approximately one month old when she suffocated from mud inhalation and had remained in permafrost until she was discovered only three years ago in Siberia.  Lyuba, named after the wife of the reindeer herder who discovered her, is so perfectly preserved that scientists were able to find mother's milk in her stomach and collect DNA.

 Lyuba, the baby woolly mammoth

For more information, please visit:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/5262616/Secrets-of-37000-year-old-baby-mammoth-revealed.html
or
http://www.fieldmuseum.org/mammoths/exhibitionhighlights.asp

Life Coming to Life . . . Finally!

It is 12:31 p.m. on Saturday, March 6, 2010, and precisely 43.3 degrees with abundant sunshine.

	43.3 °F Clear

http://www.wunderground.com/ 

I was scheduled to work today but since I don't work Saturdays anymore, I'm FREE. Free to walk around in the sunshine today and shed my heaviest winter coat. Free to have a leisurely browse at the bookstore after breakfast. Free to stroll down to the art center to see what workshops are still open.  Free to meet a new friend to lunch with at Dalat and to visit a new exhibit at the Riverside Arts Center in Ypsilanti.

Free!   Free!   Free!

Now that I am FREEr than I have been in a long time, I feel obliged not to take this for granted. When I'm able to attend ignite3 on a Thursday evening, I really must relish it and remember that not so long ago, I did NOT have the FREEdom.

Another one of my long-winded points:  I know it's hard to be grateful and upbeat every moment, but really, sometimes to keep things in perspective, we have to imagine what our lives would be like without what seems to be the smallest things.  Would I have ever thought about knees in the same way if after three years I wasn't still struggling with the aftermath of shattering my right one?   Hmmm.

good 'shop/BAD 'Shop (see 05.06.2010)

This is "Bad 'Shop" before and after . . .

Gorgeous Dignified Harvey

Punker Harvey

I'm having a little too much fun learning Photoshop.  Obviously!