Here is a Mexican
opal, full of fire, almost blood-red, glowing feverishly from its
burnished-copper setting. What a terrible, yet beautiful ornament!
One would be, I imagine, under a sort of fierce and splendid spell
while wearing it. Here, cool and pale and pure as a moonbeam, is a
little water opal,--set in silver of course. Here is an "abalone
blister," iridescent like mother-of-pearl, carrying in it something of
"the shade and the shine of the sea" from which the mother-shell
originally came. Here is matrix opal, and here are numbers of
strange-hued, crystalline gems with names all ending in "ite." To
model with metal for clay--to paint with jewels for colour! Does it
not sound like very real and very fascinating art?
These are passing glimpses of but two of the art industries of the
Village. There are many others--enough to fill a book all by
themselves. There are the Villagers who hammer brass, and those who
carve wood; who make exquisite lace, who make furniture of quaint and
original design. There are the designers and decorators, whose brains
are full of graceful images and whose fingers are quick and facile to
carry them out.
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